Sermon from Sunday, May 21, 2017

Psalm 66
Theme: The power of God that will most inspire the world to faith and hope, is the power to reach out to, and raise up those who have been made less than full members of the global family
 

At some point we’ll have to stop showing pictures of Louai and Israa and their children in worship.

Right now we really need to see the pictures – for seeing is believing, and it’s good for us to see and hear how the story is unfolding – how their need and our good intentions, their struggle and pain and our prayers, their courage and endurance and our persistence and shared work have come to a good end.  It was so good last Sunday to see the first pictures of them safe and sound in the airport in Toronto.  And so good this week to see and hear of them settling into Grimsby, surrounded by loving and supportive community and beginning to find themselves a new place to call home.

At some point, though, we will have to let go of the need to see and hear everything, let them move as much as possible beyond being “the Syrian refugee family” in our community – different from the rest of us because of it, and let them become our neighbours – just that, and we, their neighbours, and all that that means. 

Because that’s the point of it, isn’t it?  The point of them seeking and us helping them find a safe place to live.  The point of them leaving Syria with all its pain and horror, and coming to Canada and the chance to live and grow and raise their family here in freedom and safety.  The whole point of it is for them to be included – as much as anyone, in full and free human community – as much as we are able to realize it ourselves.

That’s also the point of the story and the national memory that’s celebrated in Psalm 66. 

Praise God with shouts of joy, all people!  [the psalm begins]
Say to God, “How wonderful are the things you do!
    Your power is so great
    that your enemies bow down in fear before you.”

And what power is this the psalmist and the people who recite the psalm generation after generation have in mind?  It’s the power God showed – long, long before, in setting the people free from bondage to the empire of Egypt, to become a free people in Canaan, free to take their place and grow as equals among other peoples of the world. 

God led them out of Egypt – first through water in one dramatic act, and then across desert wilderness for forty long years.  The journey was trying, the burdens faced were great, and even when the people reached the promised land the journey was not over.  There were lessons to be learned, mistakes to be learned from, trials to be endured, cleansing to be suffered, and consequences to be borne.  But through it all, in the wonderfully simple and heartfelt words of the psalmist, “God has kept us alive and not allowed us to fall” – so look, all you nations, and give praise to the God who does this kind of thing in the course of human history and among the peoples of the world.

You see, Israel was not any more special than any other people or nation just in and of themselves.  But because of their servitude, their extreme bondage and suffering in the empire of Egypt, the kind of dehumanization and genocide that Egypt practiced against them, God took special pity on them, and declared them to be a people he would set free and raise up, whom he would make a great nation, and show all the world that the power of God in history, the good will of God in human affairs, the constant purpose of God in an age to set free the oppressed and raise up the poor will not be undone nor defeated.

The point of it all is good and true human community shared among all in love.  What else would the Father of all – which the Bible believes God to be, want for his children, but to be family together without division and exclusion, with doors open to one another, and a will to be reconciled, healed and brought back together when conflict does occur, hurt is inflicted, or loss is suffered by any? 

And isn’t this why we reach out as we do in such joy and love to this particular Syrian family, because it’s our way into this work of God in our time – of liberating people from brokenness and fear to find healing and hope?  And why it does it so much good at least for now to see the pictures and hear the reports?

Isn’t this why many members of this congregation still remember so fondly this church’s sponsorship of a family of boat people from Vietnam 40 years ago, because it too was a way of being part of God’s work in that time, and knowing first-hand both the power and the joy of it? 

“Let no one resist or rebel against God,” the psalmist says, because any time the world as a whole or any little part of it is divided into rich and poor, privileged and dispossessed, included and excluded, inside and outsider, we know where God’s preference is, and what God’s purpose will be.

And isn’t this also, in more seemingly mundane and ongoing ways, why we as a church bring food at different times of the year for the Stoney Creek Food Bank, why we have supported City Kidz for over 10 years now, why we still do what we can to raise money for Case for Kids and all of Wesley Urban Ministries’ work with children, young people and families living in poverty in Hamilton? 

Isn’t it also – thinking closer to home, why we take time to remember those in our own circle who are not here because of age or illness, why we reach out to those who feel the isolating effect of cancer or other disease, why we are doing all we can to make our building as accessible as possible, why we feel guilty when we forget or overlook those who have been hurt in some way or left behind on the wrong side of some disagreement or conflict?

There are so many ways in which community – God’s family, large or small, is fractured, and people are divided into winners and losers, higher and lower, included and excluded, powerful and dispossessed. 

And there are at least as many and more ways of reaching across those divides and of being part of God’s good purpose of giving all a place that they can call home in loving community with the rest of God’s children.

We celebrate the arrival of the Syrian family, and in the good news of their safe arrival we are reminded of the larger and eternal good purpose of God in all human affairs, and of the place we can choose to have in it.