Sermon from Sunday, May 28, 2017

Readings:

Habbakuk 1:2-7, 12-13; 2:1-4
(Once-glorious Israel has fallen into corruption, injustice and chaos.  The Babylonians will invade the kingdom and over-run the land.  And when Habbakuk asks God why, and what God will do about it, God says the Babylonian invasion and the end of the way they have been is really God's idea -- stage one of a giant make-over.)

Revelations 21:3b-5
(The Christian church in the century after Jesus is not sure of its future in the Roman empire, and John -- in exile on Patmos, personally feels all the anguish and anxiety of the church, and also personally receives the promise that God is using all that comes, both "good" and "bad", as building blocks for a new heaven and Earth -- a new way of living out, and making possible, the doing of God's will on Earth as in heaven.)

 

In the sixth century before Christ – in the days of Habbakuk, the kingdom is in trouble.  What used to work, doesn’t any more.  Everyone is in it just for themselves.  Old notions of decency, justice, fairness, and the way God wants a society to work for the good of all, have become just old notions.  The enemy of the day – the militaristic barbarians of Babylon, are on the border about to over-run God’s people at any moment. 

But does it even matter?  How many of God’s people still act like God’s people?  They do their best to maintain the rituals and institutions they grew up with, but how long has it been since they have really followed and taught others God’s ways of peace and well-being for all? 

The prophet Habbakuk is mired in sorrow, grief and anger at what life is like around him.  He still has faith enough, though, to bring the problem and his feelings about it to God, and to honestly wait, for God’s answer.

And the answer is that the passing away of what used to be and the sweeping away of what is no longer working, is not just a tragedy of the times, but part of God’s good will.  Because God is doing a makeover.  God is renovating the household to make it, over the next little while, into what is needed to be able to live out God’s good will in the new world that is emerging.

So write the promise down, God says – big enough so you can see it while you’re running for cover.  Write it down so you don’t forget in the coming confusion.  Write it down so you can walk with continuing and sustaining faith through the days to come.

In the first century after Christ – in the days of John the mystic seer, the Christian community is not sure of the future.  At least not their future.  There have been times when they seemed to be gaining a foothold in society and in the culture of their day.  But it also seems whenever some advance is made and they become part of the fabric of a city, they either lose their edge – the critical edge of the kingdom of God for their time, or if they keep that prophetic edge, they soon are not so happily received anymore.

The military-economic empire of Rome still dominates the world.  And Rome does not like the Christian church’s message of allegiance to the way of Jesus instead of Caesar, and Jesus’ insistence on love, compassion, equality, openness, forgiveness and peace as the way to govern the world and make life on Earth good.  So the church’s most faithful leaders are being imprisoned and communities are being persecuted.  John himself is in exile on the island of Patmos, and he wonders how long, O Lord?  We have come so far from the days of Jesus, and is there any way forward?  When on Earth will we see God’s good will being done?

To which the answer is, Behold, I am with you.  History is God’s home.  God lives, and always will live with you and among you – suffering what you suffer, grieving what you grieve, but with this difference, that God also is taking all that is, whether it seem good or bad, and using it as building blocks for a new way of being heaven and Earth.  And it will come.  It always does.  And always will.

Write this down, because these words are true and can be trusted.

Today, in preparation for the annual meeting of Hamilton Conference in Port Elgin, Gord Dunbar, President of Conference for the past two years, wrote these things down in a letter addressed to us and all the congregations of the Conference. 

We often feel [he says, like Habbakuk did, when we see our old ways of being the people of God passing away.]  We look around and see more grey heads and fewer and fewer children and youth.  We scan our balance sheets and note how tight our finances are becoming…  We notice … neighbouring congregations … closing or amalgamating…or using part-time ministry personnel because they don’t have enough resources for full-time.  The resources we give to the Mission and Service Fund have slumped.  Even the United Church Women are diminished.

We remember, though.  Oh yes, we remember.  And we lament [the passing of] what we once had. 

[But I have also seen God’s hand and God’s good work in all this.]  In my travels across Hamilton Conference I have seen promising signs, indeed. 

There’s a small congregation just northeast of Hanover called Crawford United Church.  Like many rural congregations, it is a caring, committed community of faith, but resources are shrinking.  In response to that challenge, the congregation has reached across Conference boundaries to explore a shared ministry with another congregation.  Far more than a survival strategy, the strengths of each congregation seem to be a wonderful fit, complimenting each other, likely leading to renewed mission and refreshed purpose.

I attended the ribbon-cutting and dedication of a community hall nestled up beside Bethel Stone United Church near Paris – another rural congregation with a vision of how to serve the community thanks to a generous legacy donation. 

I have attended Halton Presbytery’s yearly conference hosted at Wellington Square United Church in Burlington…called “Ministry in Motion” where ministry personnel and lay folk gather to consider how to do church differently – a real incubator for those exploring the Holy Shift within which we find ourselves.

I attended a Waterloo Presbytery meeting at Trinity United in Elmira where the congregation is moving toward building a new facility which will feature rental accommodation.  Their building will change significantly, but the new facility will fund their ministry instead of our usual scraping enough together to pay for the building.  And they’ll be forging new relationships in the community and making a difference.

I attended a ribbon-cutting and dedication service for the renovations and expansion of Pelham Community Church in Niagara Presbytery.  Not only is their congregation growing, but they incorporated windows from another United Church in their design, they utilized a legacy gift from a second congregation to help fund the addition and they navigated the transition with the assistance of a neighbouring congregation from a different denomination. 

See what’s emerging?  In the midst of our seeming apocalypse, resurrection is our reality. So when you see things passing away and changing, when you hear the theme “Holy Shift!” think of it as both challenge and promise, for God is making all things new.

In eager anticipation and faith-filled joy,

Gord Dunbar

And then … just to drive the point home, in case I missed it, the same day I read that letter, I also saw and read this story on one of the church-leadership websites I subscribe to:

In January 2016, six months after Kerry Mraz, 38, moved to Houston for his wife’s new job, his marriage ended and he found himself unmoored in a city he barely knew.  While walking one day in a park near his home, he met a neighbor, who invited him to church -- at a Taco Bell.

The next Wednesday, at 7:30 a.m., Mraz went to Taco Church, where a small group of men gathered for breakfast, Bible study, jokes and prayer.  The group, started by an Episcopal priest and a few guys from his gym, shared vulnerability in a way that Mraz had rarely seen. Sometimes he had to step outside the fast-food restaurant to cry.

The priest, the Rev. Sean Steele, told Mraz that Taco Church was part of the newly launched St. Isidore Episcopal, a “church without walls” focused on small group discipleship and community service.  The church didn’t have a building, and it didn’t want one, Steele said.  Instead, it had a cellphone app, linking members to the church’s many parts.

As Steele explained, St. Isidore was one church embodied in many different ways.  It wasn’t just Taco Church.  It would eventually become three house churches, a pub theology group, a free laundry ministry, a food truck and more.  It was all quite unorthodox, except the liturgy and theology, which were decidedly Episcopalian.

Steele holds tightly to Episcopal liturgy even as he brings it into novel settings such as breweries and laundromats.  St. Isidore is aimed not just at unorthodox places, he said, but also at unorthodox people, like the formerly Daoist chicken farmer who now runs the pub theology group. 

“I’m trying to think about the people who aren’t going to a church on a Sunday morning,” Steele said.  “I’m not interested in getting Christians that are already Christian.  There’s a population out there hungry for spirituality and hungry for a community of faith.   While they’re skeptical about a traditional church, they are willing to explore an alternative way of being church.”

And that was only one of a number of stories about churches discovering new ways of being church – churches that both with and without buildings are part of God’s Holy Shift – the great make-over of the people of God for the world that is today.

It’s challenging.  It can be scary.  It’s unsettling.

But do you see what’s emerging, [Gord Dunbar asks us] – that in the midst of our seeming apocalypse, resurrection is our reality?  Yes, things are passing away and shifting, but those things are not God, and can we see their passing away and shifting as both a challenge and a promise from God, who is making all things new?

Write this down, John says, because these words are true and can be trusted – that God is with us in the present ferment, and it’s God – not just history and the world around us who is taking the old pieces apart and helping them come together in new ways, putting heaven and Earth back together in new ways – ways more helpful and appropriate for the times that are, and are coming. 

So write the promise down, Habbakuk says.  Write it big enough so you can see it while you’re running for cover.  Write it down so you don’t forget in the coming confusion.  Write it down so you can walk with continued and sustaining faith in God through the days to come.