Toward Sunday, May 31, 2014

Readings:  Isaiah 6:1-8 and John 3:1-17

Two themes stand out for me right now, and I wonder what they mean for my life and my soul:

Stained Glass window in Union Congregational Church, Montclair NJ

1.   the view from above -- after seeing God "high and lifted up" in the Temple, Isaiah's perspective on himself and his times are changed dramatically ... and when Nicodemus secretly comes to Jesus asking how he might find for himself the new way of life Jesus is living and is inviting others to live as well, Jesus talks about the necessity of being born "from above" ... I know I spend most of my life immersed in the things of our time, our culture, my own class ... so when do I really see "the big picture" and the way things look "from above"? ... what moments or experiences have I, or have any of us had when, like the prophet Isaiah, we have been able to see things in a new way, in the way God might see them, or in the way people simply overwhelmed by God's truth might see them? 

   

   Benjamin West, "The lips of Isaiah purified by the Fire" 

2. the cleansing of our lips -- what I talk about and how I talk about the things of life matter a lot ... today we learn and uncritically adopt so much of our language, our vocabulary and our basic view of what's important in life from retailers and their advertisers, from political parties and other truth-twisters, from celebrities and entertainers and social media  ... do I make time for my lips (what I talk about and how I talk about the things of life and issues of the day) to be cleansed and re-shaped to be able to voice God's language, vocabulary and basic view of what's important? ... how do we help one another do this?
   
    

Sermon from Pentecost Sunday (May 24, 2015)

Reading:   Ezekiel 37:1-14
Sermon:  You're sure we have all the right pieces?

When you buy IKEA furniture do you take the time to see first if you have all the right parts before trying to assemble it?  And what would you do if you found you were missing a few essential parts to that swing set you just bought for the kids?  Or had some wrong parts – what look like some parts maybe left over from a lawn-mower instead? 

I wonder if Christians today often approach church with this "do we have all the right parts?" mind-set.  Why else would we hear so much lament about not having enough kids, not having enough young families, not having a parking lot, not having enough money, not having the right mix of people, enough of the right music, or the right technology ... as though things like these are the problem, and a good church can’t be assembled without all the right parts? 

Just think of Ezekiel as he stands before, and then enters into the valley of bones.   

Bad enough that they are dry, dusty, dead and disconnected.  That’s the state of the people of Israel.  They are no longer a kingdom connected together and living out their God-given role in the world.  Through years of bad policy, dishonest and corrupt leadership, poorly-thought-out alliances, selfishness and short-sightedness, and a basic refusal to honour God and God’s way of serving the good of Earth and the well-being of all things, they have ceased to be a people of any purpose or importance in the world.  They have lost their life and their reason for being, and have actually been overthrown and dismantled by their foes. 

But also, the pieces now are all jumbled.  Imagine how the bones have been scattered and tossed about.  Mixed up and confused.  How now will Ezekiel or God or the host of God’s angels know which bones connect to which, which ones belong together and in what order to rebuild the bones into real individual and separate bodies?  Do they have all the parts?  Will there be some parts left over – put aside for spare parts, maybe? 

And, even if they manage to build the bones into bodies, will they not still be missing the more important ones?  Because the king and the royal household, the priests and the prophets, the nobles and the chieftains and the ones who can manage the affairs of state and offer leadership in the arts and the sciences, have all been taken off to Babylon.  Some of them have even died there.  And what will we do without them?  Without the ones who were the more important members of the body of the people? 

On all kinds of levels, I can imagine Ezekiel looking at what lies before him, and honestly asking, “God?  Are you sure we have all the right parts to rebuild the people?” 

To which God replies, "Stop worrying about the parts list.  Each people I build is different anyway.  As long as the Word and the Spirit are there, the parts that are here will be just what's needed.  So preach the Word, and help the people hear it; the Word will bring the parts together in the way they need to be.  And call for the Spirit; when you do, I will send it and it will be the breath of life the people need to live and move as the people they are brought together to be.” 

Do we sometimes worry about being dry and dusty?  I know with the change from old village to new suburban life, we worry about being dis-connected. 

Do we sometimes feel all jumbled and mixed up?  Not sure what parts belong with which?  What pieces of what used to be, we should try to carry on?  What new things or pieces from elsewhere to embrace?  What one or two of maybe seven or twelve or twenty different projects or points of focus to take on? 

And do we sometimes lament that maybe the more important pieces aren’t here?  That we’re missing something crucial – whether money or kids or a parking lot or the right kind of minister or the newest program or whatever someone else’s parts list tells us we should have? 

God?  Are you sure we have all the right parts to be what you want us to be? 

To which God replies, “Stop worrying about the parts list.  Each people I build is different anyway.  As long as the Word and the Spirit are here, the parts that are here will be just what's needed.  So preach the Word, listen to it and let it guide you; it will bring you together in the way you need to be.  And call for the Spirit; when you do, it will come and it will be the breath of life you need to live and move as the people you are brought together to be.”

Toward Pentecost Sunday (May 24, 2015)

Reading:  Ezekiel 37:1-14
Theme: You're sure we have all the right pieces?

When you buy IKEA furniture, do you take the time to see if you have all the right parts before trying to assemble it?  And what would you do if you found you were missing a few essential parts to that swing set you just bought the kids?  Or had some wrong parts?

I think Christians today often approach church with this "do we have all the right parts?" mind-set.  Why else would we hear so much lament about not having enough kids, not having enough young families, not having a parking lot, having the wrong mix of people, not having enough of the right music, or the right technology ... as though things like these are the problem, and we can't put together a good church without all the right parts?

When Ezekiel looked at the valley of dry bones that were the people of Israel, what a jumble of discarded, disconnected, dis-organized bits of body and bone he saw. 

With no parts list to compare the contents of the valley against. 

"Hey God," he might have asked, "You're sure we have all the right pieces to rebuild the people?"

To which God replies, "Stop worrying about the parts list.  Each people I build is different anyway.  As long as the Word and the Spirit are there, the parts that are here will be just what's needed."

Sermon from Sunday, May 17, 2015

Readings:  Acts 1:15-17, 20-16 and I John 5:9-13
Sermon: What do other people see in us?

There’s probably little doubt the Christian church today faces a credibility crisis.  Whether we think of the universal church or individual congregations like our own, I/m sure we all have our own list of why people don’t bother with church, or listen to it, or want to be part of it. 

Yet, here we are still.  And people do still come and want to be part of it.  We all know churches that are growing, and next week we also have the privilege of welcoming Bernice Stroud and Mel Robertson into full membership.  So why is that? 

I know when it comes to our church, one thing that gets mentioned a lot is how honestly friendly the people of this congregation are – how warm and welcoming we can be. 

Some come for the Sunday school, where their children or grand-children learn about God and Jesus and the kingdom of God.   

Others are drawn by the number of things this congregation does and cares about.  Back in February when little Japhia and Sam – our grand-children, were baptized into this church, some of the other family members were here, including Japhia’s first husband and his wife who are active in a church of their own and know about church and ministry and mission.  And when they sat in our worship, felt your embrace, and even saw and heard our announcements that day – I think it probably included something about CityKidz Miracle Sunday, the local food bank, The Observer subscription renewal drive (which included powerpoint images of about a dozen recent Observer covers and the variety of issues the magazine highlights from a faith perspective), the Dominican mission trip that John VanDuzer was leading later that month, the after-worship sessions on exploring the sacred in death and grief, and the community Quilt Club – one of their first comments after worship was, “Wow. Your church does a lot. And I can see it’s a good place for you guys to be.” 

So there are lots of reasons for people to care about the church, and to want to be part of it – but is it enough? 

The first Christian church – the gathering of believers in Jerusalem around the disciples of Jesus right after his death and resurrection and ascension, also had credibility problems and we’ve read about them in The Book of Acts.  

For one thing, there’s the matter of who they are following.  It’s Jesus and they say he’s the Son of God and the messiah the world is looking for.  But he is also the one who was killed as a dangerous criminal by the imperial authorities in Jerusalem.  And how do you sell someone like that as the one you ask people to follow?  Even now, Jesus can be a tough sell whenever we focus on how radically counter-cultural he can be. 

Then there’s the scandal of Judas Iscariot, one of the first twelve disciples group around Jesus.  He betrayed Jesus and helped the authorities arrest him, and now he has died himself very tragically, maybe by suicide.  How will the remaining community handle that credibility nightmare, because why would anyone want to join a movement with leaders like that?   

And that raises the matter of numbers.  With Judas there had been twelve disciples –a number that mimicked the number of tribes in Israel, and that helped the Jesus movement present themselves as the new Israel promised by the ancient prophets.  But now there are only eleven; the circle is broken; the community is incomplete.   It hasn’t lived up to its calling and self-image, and how does that make them look to outsiders? 

With their credibility as a community as full of holes as that, why would anyone want to join? 

It’s interesting what they do in that position. 

First, they pray.  That happens in the verses just before where our reading begins this morning.  Maybe we should have read those verses as well, to remind ourselves of the importance of really praying together for direction as a church.  But be that as it may, they pray. 

And then they do three things.   

First, they face up to the fact of Judas Iscariot, his terrible betrayal and his tragic death.  They deal with what’s happened as openly and honestly as they know how, and they let what has happened – as awful and upsetting as it is, be part of their story. 

Second, they focus on their calling and their mission for the world.  They renew their commitment to being the new Israel for the good of the world in the name of Jesus, by choosing a new twelfth apostle.  Come hell or high water, come the worst of sin and imperfection into their own fellowship, they count their mission from God and from Jesus as the one thing they need to stay true to. 

And third, they set a basic requirement for leadership and apostleship in the community.  They decide that in choosing a twelfth apostle, he or she must be someone who like the others has really known Jesus through the whole of his ministry, and who like them is a witness to the resurrection. 

When I think about that as the two basic requirements for being an apostle of Jesus, I think it’s safe to say – I hope it’s safe to say, we know Jesus and the whole of his ministry.  We know his teaching and his healing, the kind of community he creates, his practice of forgiveness as the basis of life, his vision of the kingdom of God being real in the world, and the way it’s made real through sacrificial love.  We know Jesus as much as anyone. 

But then there’s that other bit: to be a witness to the resurrection.  Does that still apply?  Is that still a requirement for us to be real messengers of Jesus in the world today? 

Among the first disciples in The Book of Acts, it meant that someone had actually seen Jesus risen between the time of his crucifixion and burial, and his ascension to the right hand of God forty days later.  But now, two thousand years later, what does it mean to be a witness to the resurrection? 

Does it mean that like people who claim to see Elvis, that we need to be able to see Jesus at the local Timmy’s, and tell people about it?  Or driving down the highway?  Or at least in a dream or in a vision in the sky? 

Or does it mean we have to be able to prove his resurrection?  Debate the facts and the fictions of the story, and have all the arguments at hand as to why people need to believe it as it’s told? 

Or does it mean something else – maybe what the sermon of I John seems to be getting at, 60 or 70 years after the events of The Book of Acts?  Now does it have something to do with followers and believers of Jesus living in their own life, the way of life he came to show us and invite us into?  Does it mean living the way of God’s kingdom, as he did, because this is what he still helps us do?  Does it mean that people see in us, what they saw in him – real human beings living life – all of life, in the way God intended from the beginning, still intends, and always will intend, because it’s the way that really is best for us, for others, and for all the world? 

It’s not just a question of how friendly, how good, how charitable, and how well-intentioned we are as a congregation.  We are all these things, and people see that we are.  And these things are important of course.  But we also know – as the first Christians knew of themselves, that there are also always limits to the friendship we feel and practice, to the goodness we can muster and live out, to the charity we extend, to the goodness and purity of our intentions in different situations. 

And that’s when it becomes important to remember it’s not just about us, and not just us that people need to see in our living and in our ways of being church.   

Our reason for being, and the reason for others being here with us is that in our own lives, in the way we see and treat one another, in the ways we reach out to the world – especially to the poor and the vulnerable, the alien and stranger, the “other” and the ones all too easily identified in our time as “the threat” – that we bear witness not just to ourselves, but to the life and spirit of Jesus above and within us; that Jesus somehow be alive and at work in our lives; and that when others are with us they also somehow know themselves to be in his presence. 

I wonder how that happens, and how we grow into that calling.

 

 

Towards Sunday, May 17, 2015

Readings:  Acts 1:15-17, 20-26 and I John 5:9-13
Sermon:  What do other people see in us?

Why should anyone believe anything the Christian church has to say?  Why should anyone want to be part of it?

Right from the start, the Christian church had a credibility problem. 

First, there was Jesus who they believed to be the Son of God and the Saviour that the world needed: he was dead -- killed by the imperial powers of the day.  Second, there was their own leadership: twelve disciples who kind of mimicked the twelve tribes of Israel, marking the Jesus movement as the new Israel the prophets had talked about -- but now those 12 were down to 11 because one of them -- Judas Iscariot, had betrayed Jesus to his enemies, and then died tragically, maybe by suicide.

So, to repeat ... why should anyone believe what that group had to say, and why would anyone want to join a movement like that?

We face much the same questions today, although for different reasons.  And I wonder if we can learn something from the first church, and how they handled their crisis of credibility.  Our readings suggest it has something to do with showing people new life (being a "witness to the resurrection") and actually living the life of Jesus to show people it works and it's worth it.

Sermon from Sunday, May 10, 2015 (Mothers' Day)

Scripture:  Proverbs 8:1-6, 14-17, 32-36
Sermon:  Honouring the Mother-Wisdom of God's World

Never under-estimate the power of mothers. 

Can we say that together?  Never under-estimate the power of mothers. We’ll return to that line a few times – it’ll be our Mothers’ Day mantra. 

One of the shows I still like watching is “Everybody Loves Raymond.”  If you know the show, you know it really is “all about Raymond,” isn’t it?  Everything and everyone in his life has to circle around his fragile ego.  But why is that?  Isn’t it because of Marie – his and Robert’s mother  Isn’t is she who really shapes and defines the family’s life – and all the characters in it – including the outsiders and newcomers who happen to marry into it – who marry into Marie’s world? 

Never under-estimate the power of mothers. 

On Friday the GO Section of The Spectator had a two-page cover story titled, “Mothers’ Day Wisdom: Successful kids share Mom’s most unforgettable advice.”  And which of us does not have something like that in our own hearts and minds -- some words, some direction, some constant admonition from our mother that has helped shape our life and determine our character, the way we see ourselves or the way we see the world? 

Never under-estimate the power of mothers. 

Last week we saw the Case for Kids video that features the self-told life-story of Navi, a 19-year-old young man who grew up in poverty in central Hamilton.  In it he talks about Wesley’s children and youth programs being the things that helped him grow up from the time he was a toddler until now when he is in university.  But behind all that he says was his mother – who protected him and his siblings from abuse, who took them away from households of gambling and addiction, who kept them safe and put them into good environments as much as she could.  He calls her “his rock” and it’s clear that he and his siblings know who they owe their life to.  He knows very well … 

Never under-estimate the power of mothers. 

And even when we lament situations that are not so good – where mothers are too troubled to provide the kind of care their children need, where mothers are absent or abusive, what we feel – both the longing for surrogate mothers and mother-figures, and sorrow or anger at the failure to mother – only reinforces what we know deep down in our hearts, to …  

Never under-estimate the power of mothers. 

The power of mother, and the longing for mother is part of our biology.  How can it not be, given the way we come to life and into the world?  But it’s even more than that.   

Our faith as well as our experience tells us it’s hard-wired into the nature of the world, of Earth, of the cosmos itself – that in addition to whatever other power there may be that makes things go, and sometimes go apart and into chaos and out of control beyond reasonable and helpful limits, there is also a power that at its best – not always, but at its best, holds things together in good order, longs for well-being for all, and understands the need for mutual respect, compromise, and co-operation towards a harmonious way of being.  Proverbs talks about it as the Wisdom of God, and God’s Wisdom is described in feminine terms – as a Woman who calls to us from the marketplace of the world to follow her sensible, life-giving ways, and who says that she and her ways are what make the world go best. 

Over the past few weeks in the midst of the 100^th and the 70^th anniversary memorials to different aspects of World Wars One and Two, there have been a few programs looking back not just at the soldiers and the sacrifices they made, but at the attempts of some women in those days to engage in some serious peace-making.  In May 1915, for instance, 1000 mothers gathered in The Hague, Netherlands to try to come up with ways to stop the war, and to demand an end to the war that was taking the lives of so many of their husbands and sons, and the husbands and sons of so many other women on both sides of every border.  They did it not because they were necessarily pacifists, or anything else that might be given an ideological label.  They did it because they were mothers, and they let motherly care for their own children as well as the children of others become their politics. 

Never under-estimate the power of mothers. 

In one of the programs, I also heard of an American mother who in the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis, demanded to see and speak to President Kennedy to urge him to stand down from his threat to begin nuclear war, because she feared for the lives of all the world’s children.  When asked why she of all people should be allowed such an audience, her answer was simple: “Because I’m a mother.  Precisely because I am a mother, I have a right to speak to the President.” 

Never under-estimate the power of mothers. 

Since then, I’ve heard about Mothers for Nuclear Disarmament, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the mothers of the disappeared in Central and South America, the Catholic and Protestant mothers in Northern Ireland who learned to stand united for peace, Israeli and Palestinian mothers who for years have been meeting together in small home-groups in the Middle East to learn about mediation and about one another, mothers who volunteer to monitor schoolyards and lunchrooms in schools where bullying is common, mothers who formed the Women’s Institute and petitioned different governments for all sorts of things for the health and well-being of all children in the community, mothers of young black men unjustly who die in the custody of police in American inner cities who make sure their sons do not die in vain.  It makes me wonder if anyone in our country ever listened to the voices of First Nations’ mothers as their children were taken from them to residential schools.  Or what may happen when we learn to really hear the voices of women like Navi’s mother in our own inner cities.  Or even, as happened a generation ago here with the MOMS group, to the varied and often unheeded voices of mothers right around us here in our own community? 

 

Never under-estimate the power of mothers.

 

We have read in Proverbs:

 

Does not wisdom call,

and does not understanding raise her voice?

On the heights, beside the way,

at the crossroads she takes her stand...

 

By me -- in the world as God intends it, kings reign,

and rulers decree what is just;

by me rulers rule,

and nobles govern rightly...

 

Happy is the one who listens to me,

who sits near enough to hear me.

Whoever finds me finds life

and obtains favour from the Lord;

but those who miss me injure themselves;

all who hate me love death.

 

I wonder what it means today to hear and honour the mother-wisdom of God’s world, and to never under-estimate the power of mothers?

Towards Sunday, May 10, 2015 (Mothers' Day)

Reading:  Proverbs 8:1-11, 14-17, 32-36

The wisdom tradition of the Hebrew Scriptures, of which The Book of Proverbs is a part, talks about the Wisdom of God as almost another person beside God, feminine in nature and expression, and at the heart of what makes the world good.  The reading this week invites us to listen to the voice of this Woman.

We should probably never under-estimate either the power or the importance of the voice of mothers -- at least that voice of those mothers (biological and spiritual) who live their calling to care for the children -- their own and others. 

A hundred years ago, a thousand mothers gathered in The Hague, Netherlands to try to stop what was then called "The Great War" and that we now call more simply (and depressingly) "World War One."  They didn't succeed, but their voice is not lost and maybe part of their legacy is the variety and vitality of mothers' voices we have heard and still hear since then, like that of:

• mothers in America in the early 60's against the willingness of their leaders to go to war in the Cuban Missile Crisis
• mothers in northern Ireland united against the sectarian violence
• mothers in the Middle East learning ways of mediation and understanding
• mothers around the world organized against nuclear armament
• Mothers Against Drunk Driving
• mothers in the first world supporting mothers in the third world in their need for better health care and education for their children, and micro-economic investment in their own local industries and initiatives
• mothers of young black men slain by members of police forces in the States calling for attention and justice (which makes me wonder if anyone years ago heard the voices of First Nations women in Canada as their children were taken from them, and away to residential schools)

Proverbs 8 encourages us to listen to the voice and voices of Mother Wisdom.  Mother's Day is a wonderful time to honour that holy voice and wisdom among us.

Sermon from Sunday, May 3, 2015

Scripture:  Acts 8:26-40 and John 15:1-8

What’s it like to not fit in?  To know that because of who or what you are, what you’ve done or has been done to you, or simply what’s happened, you don’t belong?  And never will?

And then to have someone reach out to you, and let you know you do?  That you really do belong, and there’s a place for you equal to everyone else, just as you are?

The eunuch from Ethiopia knew he didn’t belong.  He was a God-fearer – a worshiper of Yahweh, connected somehow to the community of Jewish Law and observance that had existed in Ethiopia since the time of Solomon, and that over the years stayed in touch with the home community in Israel.  But he was a eunuch – castrated at some point in his life to make him “safe” to work as a court official in close company with the queen, the princesses and the king’s concubines. 

And the Law of Moses states clearly in Deuteronomy 23:1 that, “No one whose testicles are crushed or whose penis is cut off shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord.”  Everyone knew the Law – that because of his “abnormal” and incomplete sexual identity, when he went to the Temple in Jerusalem to worship God he could go only so far into it.  At home he could not be a full member of the assembly.  The Law of Moses couldn’t be more clear and final.

 

Well, maybe not final.  There was that wonderful promise in Isaiah 56 of the time to come, when the kingdom of God would appear on Earth, and God says, 

          To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,

          who choose the things that please me

          and hold fast my covenant,

          I will give, in my house and within my walls,

          a monument and a name better than sons and daughters;

          I will give them an everlasting name

          that shall not be cut off.

Aside from the prophet's wonderful play on words, it was a glorious vision of a day when those like the eunuchs who were excluded now would be welcomed in and not just let in the back door and quietly tolerated, but joyfully received, honoured and celebrated.

That was only a vision, though.  It wasn’t real life anywhere in the world that he knew. 

Until he met Philip, and in spiritual dialogue with Philip learned that in Jesus the promises of God are fulfilled – that in the community of Jesus, his followers learn to live them out and make the vision their reality.

That conversation in the wilderness, apart from the Temple of Jerusalem and the court of Ethiopia, free of the normal structures and expectations of the day changed the eunuch’s life.  We read that he went home rejoicing, and we can imagine what he had to tell the other God-fearing eunuchs he knew – that there is a community of faith, the community of Jesus, in which the promises of God come true and they even in their undeniable differentness can belong , alongside and equal to everyone else.

The conversation in the wilderness also changed Philip.  I wonder if he was excited by it?  How can you not be excited by the experience of being led by a Spirit greater than your own into helping to heal and change the life of a stranger?  To be able to share with someone else what has changed your life, and have them receive it, and grow because of it, and thank you for it?  And because of the encounter, because of your own openness to the other person’s questions and longing, and connecting what you know with what they know of life and truth, coming t0 discover something new yourself – a bigger understanding of God and of Jesus and of the kingdom of God than you really knew before, when you were just on your own and in your own familiar circle?

At which point, I wonder, did Philip say to himself, “How on earth am I going to tell the people – the other church members back home, what I have just done and what I have just learned about the meaning of Jesus and the kingdom of God in our time?”  (And I wonder if maybe that question helped him be at least a little more open to the Spirit’s idea of a bit more of a missionary journey before reconnecting with his fellow-apostles?)

We know, of course, that the community as a whole came to affirm the position he took, and the story of his theology-changing and church-reshaping encounter with the eunuch came to be part of the story of what it means to follow the risen Jesus.

But it wasn’t easy.  They did struggle with that.  The Book of Acts, the Gospels and the letters to the early churches show how they struggled to grow into the fullness of Christ and the kingdom.  Step by step it was not easy to let go of traditional practices and age-old interpretations and expectations, to embrace and grow into the way of Jesus.

We still struggle today.  Not just us; it’s a universal and on-going challenge for the church.

Several times over the past few years a few different gay people have asked me whether our church is accepting of gays and lesbians and people of other sexual orientations and identities.  I’ve told them on the one hand, yes – that I know this congregation is open and accepting, that in their own lives and minds and experience they’ve come to terms with varieties of sexual orientation and would welcome anyone – but also (knowing this is part of what they are asking) that, no – we have not yet really explored the issue, and not made a choice whether to be an intentionally affirming congregation.  The answer I get – not so much spoken, as acted out, is “Thank you, that’s really good.  But it’s not enough.”  It’s not enough to help them overcome the still-strong feeling of not belonging.

To turn the Ethiopian eunuch’s question around to us, I wonder what prevents us from taking that step?  What prevents me from helping you to take it?

The reason to do it is not just for the benefit of others who would love to know they fully belong, and are honoured by God and celebrated by others for who they are.  That should be reason enough, but there’s also personal benefit involved.  It has to do with our growth as well – in our own faith, and our own understanding and love of the God and of Jesus and of the kingdom of God.

Almost 35 years ago I was in Boston visiting a friend who is gay, and while there worshipped with him at the Metropolitan church – one of the first gay-positive churches in North America.  At that time maybe 80-90% of the congregation was gay and lesbian, and the worship was wonderful – positive, joyful, affirming, challenging about love and lifestyle and relationship, and overall very inviting and encouraging.  “Those people” because of their struggle to be recognized and embraced, knew something about God and the good news of God’s grace that I had yet to learn, and I’m glad I was there that day.

A few years ago I presided at a home wedding of two gay men – my first and so far my only same–sex marriage.  I was there with the blessing and support of Session, and as I watched those two men share their vows just two or three feet in front of me, I was deeply touched by their witness to the deep and real meaning of marriage.  These were not a man and woman for whom marriage was the logical next step after love and courtship.  These were two men for whom marriage was a hard choice, and a deeply intentional commitment and a courageous statement of who they are individually and what they want to be together.

When we honestly and humbly open ourselves and our faith to the questions, the longings and the needs of those who don’t belong and don’t fit in, it’s rare that we don’t grow ourselves.  In the encounter – as long as we are honestly and humbly open – listening to the other as well as speaking, and listening together with them for the greater truth and wisdom of God beyond us all, we ourselves are able to change and to grow in our own understanding and love of God and God’s kingdom.

And of course sexuality is not the only issue.  There are all kinds of things that make people feel – make people know, they don’t fit in and don’t belong – don’t fit into church, maybe never, maybe not any more -- don’t fit into their families – don’t belong in their community – don’t really have a place, a place equal to others, in our society.

Are there ways in which the Spirit of God and of Christ are leading us towards them – as a church or in our own lives?

Do we find ourselves sometimes in places beyond the familiar and comfortable?

Meeting people different than ourselves?

Being called maybe to open ourselves to their questions and longings?

To discover with them something more than what we have known so far about Jesus and the kingdom of God in our time?

What prevents us?