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.
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 80th or 60th
or 73rd 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.
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