For the fourth week, we read the Gospel story of Jesus’ healing of a blind man named Bartimaeus, as a way of exploring different aspects of the life of faith. This week our attention is focused on what Jesus says to the man who is healed. What does Jesus expect of this man who is healed and saved? What’s the next step for any of us, whenever we have had our eyes opened, and have come to see anything in a new and different way?
Once the walls have come down, and we’ve been drawn and invited into a reality greater than just ourselves, and we’ve been healed – had our eyes opened to see the world as it really is and catch a glimpse of how it’s meant to be, what do we do then? Where do we go? What’s the next step?
As Linda
M and I traded emails about a symbol for the sanctuary today for the experience
and practice of risk-taking mission and service, she mentioned a story this
week on The National about a church – Knox United, in Kenora ON that found
themselves living into an answer to that question.
On
February 27, 2016 a 16-year-old girl disappeared. Delaine Copenace was a shy young woman who
loved art and music, painted, dreamt of maybe enlisting in the Army and learning
the skills to be a video game designer.
She was also First Nation, and Kenora is a town with a long, deep racial
divide. The residential school was long
a fixture of Kenora culture for both whites and First Nations – generating for
the First Nations generations of pain and oppression that led to armed
resistance in the 70’s and continued struggles and isolation since, and for the
white population an attitude of superiority, distance, fear, and indifference.
Up to
100 volunteers searched for Delaine; the police launched aerial searches, but
it wasn’t until a month later that her body was found in Lake of the Woods just
metres off a dock near the OPP station in downtown Kenora. With unexplained bruises on her arms and
legs. And an official coroner’s report
of accidental drowning. Through ice she
would have known to avoid. A young woman
who was not depressed, suicidal or without supportive family.
In
many ways it was just one more terrible story of racially divided Kenora. Except for Knox United Church, because time
and in this case they did something different.
When Delaine’s disappearance
became known, the minister and leaders of the congregation offered their church
building as headquarters for the search, and themselves as volunteers for
it. They faced opposition from some of
their own members, who didn’t want their church used in that way. They also weren’t sure how the First Nations
community, so unwelcome in the church for so long, would receive their offer.
All
the minister and church leaders knew, though, was that instead of putting up
the usual walls against the tragedy – being glad it wasn’t your own child,
finding safety in the fact that it was someone else’s pain and some other
people’s loss, this time they knew deep inside this was a whole-community loss,
it could have been them or one of their children, and Delaine in some way was
their child, too.
So
they took the risks. They stepped out of
their comfort zone. Maybe into the
kingdom of God.
Like
the United Church in Ottawa that for some years now has been openly supportive
of the Muslim community in the city. And
twice over the past few years has had hate graffiti spray-painted on the walls
and doors of their building.
But once
the walls come down, and you find yourself within a reality greater than just
your own, and you see the world clearly as it is – catch a glimpse of how it’s
meant to be, and maybe can be, what do we do?
What’s the next step?
Mission
and service can be risky.
We do
have certain forms of mission and service that are fairly safe. We give money to all kinds of programs and
initiatives, and even though there’s cost and sacrifice involved – sometimes
great to be able to give as much as we want and as faithfully as we want,
there’s still the safety of distance and of being one step removed, anonymous
even.
But
there are times we take that one step beyond, and only after find out what it
means and where it leads. There are all
kinds of examples right here in our own congregation, and in our church life as
a whole.
Robyn
H, for instance, heard about Medical Mission International, and thought, I can
do that. So she did. Last October she went to the Galapagos to
help at a medical clinic for people who otherwise don’t have the eye care they
need. Then she went to Bolovia in
February, and Elizabeth W – whom some of you know, and who is part of the Quilt
Club went with her, because even though she has no medical training she knew
they also make use of general labour and the mission attracted something in
her. So much so that while she was there
she found herself doing things she had never done before – even thought of
doing, and now she’s signed on to go to Peru this summer, even though it means
taking on extra hours at her job here to make up for the time she’ll be away.
And so
many others. The VanD’s – parents and
children, have all been to the Dominican several times over the past few years
to help build houses for people who need them, and it started with just one
trip. Now they find themselves planning
their year and other activities around it.
Like
Barb M’s enthusiastic and growing commitment to City Kidz that began with one
little venture from the familiarity of Winona
to a rundown theatre in the east end of Hamilton on a Saturday morning 6 or 7
years ago for a tour of the program.
The A
family began co-ordinating the Wesley dinner probably that long ago – or more,
when we needed someone to take it over.
They signed on for 3 years, and now it’s part of their family Christmas
practice – something they do together as a family and that their children have
grown up with, with varied friends and neighbours every year and that makes Christmas
really Christmas in a way that’s bigger than just themselves.
Or
think of the Women of Fifty offering to cater a simple funeral lunch, finding
themselves overwhelmed by 150 or 200 people coming through the Lower Hall, all
needing to feel welcome and cared for. When
you open the door, you never know who or how many will come in.
Think
of Lynn M on behalf of the Trustees, approving community events and private
family gatherings in the building, glad that our doors can be open to others,
but not knowing for sure exactly what may happen while they are here.
Think of
the major step into the unknown – the really scary step that people of this
church took 40 years ago – individuals and families, when they banded together
to sponsor a family of Vietnamese boat people to Winona. Vietnamese people in Winona? People of this church helping them get here,
be settled, and become part of the community?
All I’ve heard about it is how deeply it enriched and how graciously it
enlarged the lives of all those who were involved.
I
wonder if those who help out with the sponsorship and support of the Syrian
family will find the same thing?
And
those are only the obvious and well-known stories among us. How many other stories of mission and service
do we practice as a church, and do you get engaged in on your own or as a family?
What
kinds or risks do you take on in some of the things you do? There are no guarantees that what we do will
make a difference, or that what we offer will be accepted, or that others
around us will understand or accept why we do it, or that we won’t lose our
shirt or be taken for a ride or be badly taken advantage of.
But
there is always that question: once the walls come down, we find ourself within
a reality greater than just our own, we see the world as it is, and catch a
glimpse of how it’s meant to be, and maybe can be, what do we do then? Where do we go, and what’s the next step?
What Jesus
says to Bartimaeus and to us is simple: “Go, your faith has made you well.”
“Go” –
which means there will be some direction for us to follow, some need for us to
meet, some call for us to answer, some step beyond a comfort zone to be risked.
And as
we do that, we are “made well” – made well in God’s way, made well in the way
of the Gospel, made well by finding our life in the coming of the kingdom of
God.
It’s
often – maybe always, one step outside our comfort zone.
But is
there any other way for us to find our way in to the kingdom of God in
our time?
No comments:
Post a Comment