Loving because we are loved

Reading:  Isaiah 55

After their time in Exile the people of Israel were not sure what was reasonable to hope for.  They had lost their kingdom, and they knew it had been their own fault for being unfaithful to God.  They were far away from where they wanted to be individually and as a people, spiritually as well as geographically. 

They were told that God was going to lead them home, forgive their sin, and bless them in ways that would help them be God’s people in ways they had not been before.  But they found it hard to give themselves completely to God’s promises.  They hedged their bets.  And the prophets, like the prophet of Isaiah 55, had to call them over and over again to trust and obey.

Some time ago I received an email from someone I had met a few weeks earlier in the course of planning a funeral for their father.  The email expressed thanks for the time I spent with them and thanks for the funeral, and then went on to say they thought they would like to come to worship at our church some time, and were wondering if just anyone was welcome.

I wonder how many other people outside the church who have not had much experience of church – or maybe who have experienced it, have the same question: is just anyone able to come and join in?  Will I be welcomed?

Against this and alongside it I think of the second of our four identified Core Values: grace-based love, or the kind of love that is actively welcoming, and intentionally inclusive, especially of those in need of it.

And I think of a couple of things that were offered at the mission statement workshop back in September, when the Church Council and other interested members started working on these things – two of the things offered that led us to identify grace-based love as one of our Core Values.

One is what some said about how they came to church at difficult times in their life.  They were good people, faithful and Christian in the way many of us are.  Life had been going okay for them – content at work, happy at home, with a few hobbies and outside activities to keep like interesting and fun.  But then a few things happened to them and in their families.  They suffered some losses.  Life was not just simply good any more.  They felt a need to get something solid under their feet, find somewhere that would help them find the heart of their faith again.

So they came to Fifty, and found what they needed.  No questions asked.  No test to pass.  No secret password of admissions requirement.  No need to prove themselves.  Other than to let themselves be enfolded by the love of God.

The other thing offered at the mission statement workshop was an affirmation by a lifelong member of this congregation, of what this church means to her.  At one point in the workshop we were asked to look at 50 or 60 different pictures tacked up on the wall -- pictures of almost everything you can imagine under the sun, and to pick one that most deeply spoke to us about what Fifty means to us.  The one this person picked was an aerial photograph of an incredibly braided, inter-twined, intersecting network of highways all going in different directions.  And what this image reminded this person of Fifty, she sais, is that it’s the kind of church that no matter how far you go, and how long you find yourself drawn away in all kinds of directions, you can always come back.  You can always come home, and know it’s still a welcoming home.

So, on one hand, the question that some honestly feel: can just anyone come and join in?  If I come in, will I be welcomed?

And on the other, the kind of thing that Isaiah 55 promises:

Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters;

and you that have no money, come, buy and eat!

Come in when you feel your need;

come, get what you need; it’s free and for all.

Why spend your time and your life

on things that don’t really satisfy?

Come in, what you need is here, and it’s for you. 

I wonder how there can be such a difference between the way church – even our church, looks sometimes to people on the outside, and the way it feels to people on the inside.  There are probably all kinds of reasons for that.  And I wonder if one of them is that once you actually get inside – take the step to cross the threshold, come in, and become part of a church’s life, you get to see and feel something that isn’t all that common outside.  You get to learn and grow into something – something about love as it’s practiced by God, and as we aspire to practice it in church, that changes how everything seems.  And that maybe you don’t really get until you come in.

This week in the Thursday reminder that goes out every week to people on our email list, I included a note about today’s worship.  In it, I mentioned three reasons I could think we might have for loving one another, and loving others.

One is because of who they are – what kind of person, what they are like, and what they have to offer.  In other words, we love them because they are easy to love and have something we admire or respect or need.  We love them because of what we see in them, and that’s probably really the basis of a lot of what we call love and what we are used to in the world.  Which would probably make outsiders to the church wonder: will they like me, will I appeal to them, will they see me as someone with something to offer them and their church?

Another reason we might love someone is because God tells us to.  God says we are to love our neighbour, regardless of who and how they are.  And we try to take this to heart – not let our human feelings about someone get in the way of loving them.  A few years ago Japhia and I heard a sermon preached at another church, about learning to love your teenage children no matter how terrible, unreasonable and unlovable they are because God tells you to.  And I have to say I thought it was one of the most terrible sermons I have ever heard.  The preacher’s teenaged son was sitting right in the congregation while his father described him as unlovable and that he loved his son only because God told him to.  I wondered how the son felt, and it took all I had to not just get up and leave.  To love another just because God tells us to is not always the welcoming and affirming kind of love someone might hope for.

There is a third reason for loving others, and showing open and inclusive love of them – a way of loving based on what we know about ourselves as recipients of God’s love and grace in our own lives.  One way of putting it might be as simple as this: if God can love me the way that I am, and can accept me the way that, when I am being really honest, I know that I am, how can I not love and accept anyone and everyone else I meet?

And this, I suggest – this way of loving and this reason for loving others, based on an honest and humble self-knowledge and a grateful awareness of God’s welcome of each one of us just as we are, is a kind of loving not common in the world, not known by everyone around us, but exactly the kind of love and the reason for love that makes all the difference to a church, its members, and anyone who comes in contact with it.

As the prophet says in Isaiah 55: 

my ways are not your ways, says the Lord;

my thoughts are not your thoughts;

for as high as the heavens are above the earth,

so much higher, so much more grace-based and honest

is my way of loving you and loving others

than that which most people practice

and expect of one another.

Grace-based love is what people have said they experience here.  That they are loved not just because they are nice, lovable people with something to offer.  And not just because God tells us to love them, regardless of what we might think of them.  But that they are loved because all of us know, if God can love me – can love each of us, the way that we are, how can I, how can we not also and similarly love anyone and everyone we meet?

That’s one of our Core Values.  It’s good to know it.  Good, too, to know that it’s true.

Which leads to two questions, as we think of moving ahead as a church. 

One is, do we really learn this here as much as we could?   Do we really explore and come to own our brokenness and name our sin, and how we are – or can be, transformed by God’s gracious love of us deeply enough that it really is at the heart of who we are, how we practice being church, how we love one another, and love others who we meet?

And the other is, how do we and how can we show it out loud and in public, beyond ourselves and beyond these walls, out in the community around us?  So that people like the family I did a funeral for some time ago, when they thought they might like to come to church, wouldn’t have to wonder if just anyone could come?  So no one would ever have to wonder about whether they would be welcome here, and would find the saving and healing kind of love they are looking for, freely given?

Family: We are One? (sermon for January 20, 2019)

Introduction to today and the next three Sundays:

What makes us tick?  What is really important to us as a church?  In other words, what are our Core Values?

When particular values are important to us, we live them out whether we are aware of them or not.  But being aware of them helps us be more intentional about it, and also helps us look at how well or poorly we understand the values we hold.

Our Core Values just are.  They are part of our spiritual DNA.  They are the foundation upon which our church has been built generation after generation.  They shape our life and mission, and we stand or fall depending on how well we understand our Core Values, and how closely we build upon them.

For the past 4 months our Church Council and other interested members have done some digging to find our Core Values.  For this and the next three Sundays we’re going to look at the four they discovered, lift them up to the light of God, and consider at least a little of what they say about us, and to us.

And by the way, the four Core Values that were discovered are 

• togetherness as family
• grace-based love
• service to the community
• joy expressed

Prayer:

Loving and holy God,

we thank you for the church we are, and the life we are given. 

We thank you for the particular Spirit

that guides us and shapes us,

which inspires us and draws others to you. 

May you open our hearts and minds,

that we may hear what you say to us

through our shared life and spirit,

and what you call us to become

in the name of Christ and by holiness of Spirit. 

Amen.

Reading:  John 2:1-11

In the Gospel of John things are what they are, and they are also signs and symbols of something else – something bigger, something about God.

In chapter 4, water drawn from a well is just that – what you need when you are thirsty, but it also becomes  a symbol of “living water” and a sign of God’s Spirit flowing through all of life.  In chapter 6, bread is bread that feeds a few thousand hungry people, as well as a sign of God’s food for all our souls.  In chapter 10, shepherds are shepherds who take care of sheep, and they also remind us of God’s self-sacrificial care for all of us.

In chapter 2, the Gospel of John starts to tell the story of Jesus with a wedding that he and his disciples go to because they are invited, that he saves from falling apart at the end when the people there do what he says.  And it’s more than that: the way the wedding goes is John’s way of saying what the rest of the Gospel is about, and the turning of ordinary water into the finest of wine is a symbol of the miracle of our lives when we too are willing to do as Jesus tells us.

  

Sermon:  Family – we are one?

Core value number one for Fifty United Church: togetherness as family.  The wording is approximate.  Sometimes it comes out as family unity or community togetherness.  But it comes as no surprise that this is one of our core values.

When I first began in ministry here over 17 years ago, one of the things I brought to Session (we still had Session and Stewards back then) was the idea of using name tags in worship and at church events, to identify ourselves more easily to newcomers and help them feel a little more at home by getting to know our names, and us knowing their names a little more easily.  It was something I had read in book that churches “should do” and the response was quick and sure, and pretty well unanimous: that we don’t need to do that because we all know one another pretty well. 

And that was true.  Over the years I’ve seen how members of this church really do get to know one another, care for one another, and care about one another.  How many times am I told just before worship on Sunday morning to be sure to mention so-and-so’s 80^th or 60^th or 73^rd birthday?  Or that Mr and Mrs Whoever celebrated their anniversary Thursday?  Or that someone is in the hospital?  Or someone else’s family member or close friend is really sick?

The pastoral care that is shared in this congregation is tremendous.  The regular phone calls with those who are alone or struggling.  The visits that are made.  The prayers that are said by those who do it officially as part of the Prayer Circle, and those who do it just because they care, take the time to know how people are doing, and make the time to pray for them.

This is a family church in almost every sense of the word.  Organizationally a family church is usually smallish – up to maybe 100 members, is shaped around relationships more than around structure and program, and is led by a few key individuals more than by any organizational flow chart.  Historically a family church normally has a few key families who have given the church stability over the generations.  Spiritually a family church feels like a family where everyone has a place at the table, and people love being at the table together.

Like last week after the confirmation service and the coffee time after in the Lower Hall, the way the four families of the confirmands – twenty or more people altogether, gathered across the road at the vanDuzer’s home for a meal.  What a sight it was to see that many people gathered around a cobbled-together, single long table that stretched between two rooms, sharing a meal to celebrate the confirmation of Emily, Emily, Megan and Sarah with food, drink and happy conversation.  It was like a great wedding feast.  And isn’t that what Fifty is at its best, every time we gather for whatever reason?

And who doesn’t want to be part of that?  Who wouldn’t want to be part of a family feast that flows that full and free and rich?

But … is that all that family is?  And is it always that?

We are human, and the family that we are – even as a church, is also human.  Which means there is also another side to the story.

Family, for instance – especially a family that has a strong sense of their own story and a deeply engrained self-identity, can be more closed and exclusive than they realize.  Because yes, “we all know one another pretty well,” but what about those who really do not? 

When Kathy Roussy was here she lived in both worlds.  She got involved, got to know people well and became one of the family, but she was also still a newcomer and knew the barriers newcomers face.  So whenever she made an announcement before worship she made a practice of introducing herself first-name-and-last, so anyone who wasn’t quite sure who she was yet, would get to know who she was and feel comfortable in approaching her.  And how well have we learned to maintain that practice?  One problem with strong family is that the members don’t notice the boundaries that others have to cross to join in, and the way those boundaries can be barriers. 

And other problems come up in any human family.  When someone gets hurt, it hurts all the more when it comes from someone whom you thought you were family with.  We get hurt in the world all the time and we deal with it because what can you expect in the world?  But when family hurts you – even if it’s only one member, if the rest don’t notice and don’t try to do anything about it, how do you deal with that?  How does that kind of hurt not really hurt you bad?

And what about if you just feel you don’t fit in?  You want to, you’re maybe even desperate to fit in and be accepted, but what if who you are, what you have to offer and what’s important to you just don’t seem to fit the family profile, or be part of the family story as much as you wish they were?  If the family doesn’t find a way to make your story part of their story, what do you do?  Where do you go?

Sometimes the feast we are as human family isn’t enough to give everyone all they need.  Sometimes the wine we count on to lift our spirit to the level of church and Christian community isn’t quite as rich, quite as plentiful, quite as good as we and others need it to be, for us to be the kind of family we aspire to be, and are called to be.

Which leads us to the Gospel.  And the story of Jesus at the wedding in Cana.

In the story, there is no indication that this was a bad wedding.  Yeah, the wine ran out.  But weddings there went on for days, and the story doesn’t tell us how many hours or even how many days of good feasting and drinking were enjoyed before it ran out.  Nor does it say if maybe more guests showed up than were expected, or people were drinking more than they usually did.  All kinds of things can happen to skew a family party, no matter how well planned.

So the story just says “when the wine ran out,” as though that was not an uncommon occurrence, but something everyone expected to happen at some point.  And the response of the steward of the feast suggests that the usual solution was just to go to the back of the cellar, get the poorer and cheaper stuff, and assume no one will know the difference.  There was good wine to get the party started, and now we can coast with second-best. 

And isn’t that a temptation we face?  To recycle what we used to be?  To remember how good things used to be, and assume that the memory of that is enough to carry us, to cover up the second-rate or second-hand wine we might have now?   To settle for something less than the best of spirit for the family feast we want to be? 

That’s the time, though – when things start to run thin and run out, to turn in a new way to Jesus, and in the words of his mother, to “do whatever he tells you.”

I wonder what this means.

Maybe it means remembering that this is really not our family as much as we think, but a family of God, made up of brothers and sisters of Jesus, of which we are just privileged (not entitled) along with others to be members. 

Remembering maybe that this congregation is his body, not ours.  And that the door to this church is his to open (and to close?), not ours.

Maybe remembering that the story we share here is the story of God’s work, of Christ’s appearance, of the holy Spirit’s activity in Winona, not just the stories of our own homes and families.

That when someone is hurt here, it’s a wound within his body that affects us all, and if we don’t look for healing in the way he encourages us, it’s a wound we all carry and are affected by for a long, long time.

And as for the differences and variety among us in who we are and what we bring, that the spirit of God is bigger than the little bit we have felt so far in our sails, that the word of God leads us in more directions than we can control, and that the good purpose of God is something we always are called to grow into in new ways.

Because this really is an amazing family we are called to be – that we have been for a long time, are still, that God wants us to be for a long time yet, and that the world around us – our most immediate neighbours here in Winona, still need us to be as well.

And as long as Jesus, the Christ, is here with us and we are ready to do whatever he tells us, the togetherness we find as family in him is a really good part of the foundation we are given to build on.  It’s a Core Value we can be proud of, even as we keep growing into it.

Shall we gather ... (sermon from Confirmation Sunday, Jan 13, 2019)

Readings: 

Isaiah 43:1-7

Life was not always easy for Israel.  Being God’s people did not keep them from making mistakes, and did not protect them from suffering loss and experiencing sorrow.  One of their worst experiences as a people was when their kingdom was defeated, they lost all their land, and they were taken away to live in exile in a foreign kingdom.  As they lived through that hard time, different prophets helped them learn deep things about God, and about what it means to trust in, and follow God.  In today’s reading the prophet Isaiah speaks to them of God’s promise never to abandon them, and to lead them back home.

Luke 3:15-23

 

In the time of Jesus, things are not good for the people of Israel.  The Roman Empire is taking more and more control of everything around the Mediterranean Sea – including Israel, and the people feel once again they are losing their kingdom and their land to ungodly, foreign powers.  As they learned to do in the past, they pray for God to send them a saviour who will help them get back their land and regain control of their own lives, so they can live in the world the way that God – not Rome, wants them to. 

Many who believe God will do that, go to the Jordan River to renew their faith and their commitment to God.  They remember how in the old days they came into their land by walking through the water of the Jordan from the eastern side – first, after the wilderness journey under Moses, and later when God led them back from exile.  So now a variety of preachers call them to the Jordan again – to leave Israel in a symbolic way, going over to the eastern side of the river, and then come back through the water as a sign of their renewed faith in God to save them and bring them home. 

It’s the coming back in that’s everything.  John the Baptist is one of those preachers, and Jesus is one of the people who come to him for this ritual journey of return.

  

Okay, someone has to say it.  It didn’t show up in the questions affirming the personal faith of the four confirmands.  Nor in the wording of the New Creed we all said to affirm the faith we share through the United Church with the whole of the Christian community world-wide.

But at some point it has to be said that this is the confirmation class of the Perfect Pancake – of belief in and commitment to the Perfect Pancake.  And if you think we’re talking only about Aunt Jemima or Betty Crocker here, you can ask them about it and what it’s come to mean for us.

The Perfect Pancake is as good a Christology, anthropology and soteriology – in other words, as good a statement about the meaning of Christ, of our own life, and of how we are saved and made good as any I’ve heard. 

It came out of our first gathering – what was it, a year ago last September?  And it wouldn’t have come up at all, and we wouldn’t have come to it without our gathering for breakfast and conversation together about God and us and other things that matter.

It seemed every time we gathered was like that.  As we talked, asked questions and together explored the Bible, our own experience and the traditions of the church, all six of us – Brynna and myself included, learned things and grew in some way that we never would have without those gatherings.

Gathering is important.  There’s something about faith that’s communal and shared – that has to be communal and shared if it’s to be real and alive at all.  It means something that the creed of our faith begins with the affirmation, “we are not alone; we live in God’s world.”  Not I, but we living together in God’s world is what it’s all about.

And then the affirmations, not I believe, I trust, I am called, but we believe in God, we trust in God, and we are called to be the church.  In part, because none of us is complete enough, full enough, varied enough, self-critical enough, strong enough to really believe and trust and follow God just on our own.  Also because it’s in our togetherness and in our ability to gather and to stay gathered over time in spite of what divides us, and across whatever boundaries and differences exist among us, that we actually have something to say and to show the world around us. 

Christianity is not a self-help movement we can pursue alone in the privacy of our homes and in our spare time just by reading a book and finding quiet time to work on ourselves.  That may very well be part of what we do.  But Christianity is also and always a matter of learning to be with other people in new ways, and of working together at how we are human together, and how together we discover and create the kind of community the world needs in our time to be good in the way God has made it to be good.

I remember when I first joined the church around the time I was twelve.  We had membership classes, with a book we studied; at the end of it there was also an interview for each of us with the Board of Deacons to see if we were “ready for baptism” and church membership.  What I studied in the book and was asked by the deacons, I cannot tell you.  But I remember the class itself and what it was like to study with the ten or eleven other kids my age.  I also remember how we all hung out in the lower hall of the church as one by one we were called into a room with the deacons, and how as we waited we tried to reassure everyone that it was going to go fine, and all would be well.

The gathering at times is everything.

Parker Neale, chair of Council who could not be here today expressed his regret at not being able to be here for your big day because he said he remembered very fondly his confirmation years ago.  When pressed to say what he remembered, he emailed back, “What I remember about my confirmation process is going on a sleepover with the rest of the group members in the lead-up to the big day, at another church, and getting to know them better. Then, standing up at the front of our church, Burton Avenue United in Barrie, on the big day.”

An overnight as a group.  And then standing together in front of the whole congregation.  The gathering and being part of the gathering is everything.

And isn’t that why we’re here?  Not just in confirmation today, but in worship every Sunday? 

And not just in worship.  In Sunday school and in adult education events and programs when we have them.  We come together in a house of God, under the umbrella – or, the outstretched arms of the Holy One, sharing each of us in our own way a faith that is bigger than ourselves.  And together we express and share and work out what it means – the different things it means for each of us, and the shared things it comes to mean for all of us.  And it’s thus that we grow in faith, in community, in hope, and in love of God.

It’s why the Quilt Club is about more than just quilting.  Why peeling peaches in August and making jam a week from now are spiritual as well as practical events.  It’s why shawl ministries where people knit prayer shawls to share with others are most effective when the knitters actually regularly meet together in one place and one time, rather than just do piece-work at home on their own.  It’s why proxy votes are never used and never allowed in church decision-making.  Because gathering and being part of the gathering is how we find our way and discover our faith and learn what it means to follow Christ and be part of God’s people in and for the world.

But how hard it is!

One of the reasons for the confirmation program taking 16 months is the difficulty we had finding times we could all gather and be together.  The same thing we find on Sunday mornings.  The same reason – at least one of the reasons, why it’s hard to maintain regular Sunday school and adult ed and other kinds of programs.

Sometimes we get discouraged by it.  Both those who are able to be here and those who cannot feel bad about it.  But that’s life.  And it’s not entirely new. 

Among the ancient Hebrews attendance was never complete in Temple worship and pilgrimages to the holy city or even at special meetings at appointed times with the divine.  In fact, for seventy years during the time of the exile no one got to the Temple at all.  Life took them all far away from the worship rituals they had known, and they were pretty sure it was their fault.

In the Gospels, remember how one day after the crucifixion of Jesus, Thomas didn’t come to the appointed gathering of the disciples and wouldn’t you know it, that was the day the resurrected Jesus showed up?  Thankfully for Thomas, Jesus was there again the following week when Thomas was able to make it.  And even in the letters of the New Testament, it’s clear that people got to church when they could, and sometimes they worried they weren’t getting there enough.

In this, there are two bits of good news, though.

One is that even when you’re away, for whatever reason, God is with you.  Even if where you are is full of trouble and your path seems godforsaken, and even if it’s your own fault, God is with you.  How does Isaiah put it, when he speaks to a bunch of God’s people who have been away from their land and their temple for generations already?

Do not fear, [God says], for I have redeemed you;

I have called you by name, you are mine.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;

and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;

when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,

and the flame shall not consume you.

All of us at times in our life feel like that – in deep water, in over our head, out on our own far from supportive community, far from church family and maybe also far from family altogether for whatever reason.  And God says,

Do not fear, for I am with you; I am the Lord your God,

… you are precious in my sight, and honoured,

and I love you …

And I will bring you home –

no matter where you are and how far,

I will bring my children back home–

the daughters and the sons of my heart,

everyone who is called by name, and made for my glory,

I will gather and lead back home.

And then the second bit of good news is this: that when we come home, no matter how or when it happens or for how long, the response we get is not “where were you,” or “why are you here, or that half-joking (but only half-joking) “it’s about time.”  Rather, it’s simply and only “Welcome; it’s so good you’re here.  Come in; let yourself be enfolded by God’s love.  You are my beloved, and I delight in you.  You belong.”

I remember one day when I was in middle school (we called it junior high in Manitoba) – the one and absolutely only day I came home late for supper.  This was a severe breach of family etiquette, because through all the years of our childhood supper was always at 5:30, and only 5:30 because dad got home from work shortly after 5:00 and after washing up and changing from his work clothes, it was then supper time so he and we could then get on with whatever we needed to do for the evening.

This one day though I stayed late after school to play football with friends and by the time we finished playing and I walked home, it was already 5:40 or 5:45.  I remember the anxiety I felt as I opened the side door.  The kitchen where we ate our meals was up the three steps from the landing, and just around the corner to the left.  I remember the deadly, stony silence I felt coming from the kitchen down the stairs to the side door landing where I stood alone.  I quietly and anxiously took off my running shoes, wondering what the consequence for my lateness would be.  I imagined nothing good.  And that’s when I first heard the saying, spoken in a clipped and somber tone of voice, “You’d better throw your hat in first, to see if it gets thrown back.”

Had that been God’s house, had God rather than one of us been at the head of the table, had our family at that moment been the kind of community we here at our best aspire to be, the voice that came down from above to where I stood hat in hand at the side door landing, would have said instead in the warmest and most happily welcoming way you can imagine, what we have read this morning: “You are my Son – or, you are my daughter, the Beloved; with you I am – and we all are, well pleased.  Come on in, there’s a place for you as part of us.  We’re glad you’re here and we’re together again, because the gathering, whenever we can manage it, is everything to us.”

And maybe then as well, “Oh, and now you’re here … can you tell us what happened along the way?  Was it good?  Was it something bad?  We’d like to hear it, because the story – the story that we are together, is the best part of who we are, and of what we have to offer to the world.”