Towards Sunday, May 28, 2017

Readings:

Habbakuk 1:2-7, 12-13; 2:1-4
The kingdom of Israel is coming to a terrible end at the hands of Babylon, and Habbakuk is in anguish at what is happening.  So what does God tell him?  That the world is unfolding as it needs to, and that what seems to be disaster is just Act One of God's greater drama of re-creation that waits to be revealed.  Habbakuk's message makes us wonder at the anguish and hope that can dwell together in the hearts of God's people.

Revelations 21:3b-5
In the terrible power of Rome, John sees the power of the beast set loose upon the face of the earth.  But God gives him a vision of what shall come and what God's purpose is, in and through all that is. 
  
This weekend is the meeting of Hamilton Conference (yes, usually I am there -- don't tell anyone I'm not), and the readings are those chosen for this Sunday's worship service by Rev. Gord Dunbar, minister to Port Nelson United (Burlington) and President of Hamilton Conference for the past two years.  

Gord's theme for the past two years has been "Holy Shift" -- a sign of Gord's unique tongue-in-cheek way of unsettling folks into new ways of seeing things, and more substantially a reference to the seismic and seemingly sudden changes we are undergoing these days both in the world and to the church.  

One of the patterns that students of Israel and the Christian church have noticed recently is that every 500 years or so, God seems to shake up the deck quite radically to bring God's people into whatever new shape is helpful and needed in the changed and changing world around them.  Things that no longer work or have become corrupted over the years are gotten rid of.  New things not part of the old tradition begin to emerge.  And in a very short time, God's people look very different from the way they were just a few short years before.

And guess what?  We seem to be living in exactly one of those once-every-500-years times of shake-up and shift.

As president of Conference for the past two years, Gord has seen first-hand some of this process of dying and emergence in the churches around us, and the confusing combination of grief and hope that's felt as it happens.  He's written about it in a letter to our churches, part of which will probably be read in our worship this Sunday to help us connect with the Conference we are part of.

The important question, though, is closer to home: in what ways are we touched -- or do we allow ourselves to be touched, by God's 500-year shaking-up?

What do we feel grief about, that no longer seems to work for our church?  And is its passing maybe part of God's great shake-up?

And are there new things we see starting to emerge -- different structures, expectations or ways of being church in the community that we can begin to imagine even though they aren't part of our tradition, but that may be part of God's new design for us?

My guess is we don't have clear and firm answers.  But if we have both anguish and hope, and know how to talk about both with one another and with God, maybe that's enough.