Building a community of grace one word of thanks at a time (sermon from Sunday, Sept 20, 2020)

 Opening Focus:

I am sure that God who began this good work in you, 

will carry it on until it is finished on the Day of Christ Jesus.

Beginning a new worship series:  The Letter to the Philippians (and to us) 

We are in such a changed, and still-changing time.  How do we maintain and practice what’s important?  How do we know what is, or what are the important things to practice and maintain?

This week and for the next few, our worship is based on a series of readings from the letter Paul wrote to the church in Philippi, in the midst of a new normal they were suffering through.

The old normal was Paul travelling around the Mediterranean starting churches – little Christian communities of Jesus to help change and to heal the world of their time from within.  He would come to a town or city, gather a community of believers, get them started in Christian living together, then move on, do the same thing in some other places, and then come back and visit to encourage the new churches and help keep them on the right track.

Now his life and theirs have been changed.  The new normal is that he’s older, and that he’s in prison and may not be coming out.  They’re cut off from one another.  Disconnected and really socially distanced.

So now what?  How do they maintain and practice what’s important?  How do they know what’s important to practice and maintain?

From prison Paul wrote to the church in Philippi to help them find their way into the new normal, and to still be what they need to be.  As we read, sing and pray our way through what Paul wrote, maybe we’ll hear a little bit of God’s word for ourselves today. 

Reading:  Philippians 1:3-11

Compared to Paul’s letters to other churches, which can sometimes be harsh, critical and pontifical in their tone, the letter he writes to the Philippian church is warm, gentle and even intimate in its spirit of gratefulness for them.  Why the difference?

It doesn’t seem the Philippian church and its members were that much better than the other churches.  They struggled with the same problems as other churches.

There was dissension among them, with some members not getting on well and not working together in a very co-operative spirit.  They were also starting to water down their commitment to the way of Jesus, and were making compromises in their  life and work together – so much so that part way into the letter Paul actually quotes the whole of a hymn they knew about the way of Jesus being the way of humble and self-sacrificial love for others, and this being the way that all followers of Jesus see as the only and only way to really build a good world.  Obviously, they needed reminding.

So why the gentler tone and calmer approach Paul takes with them, compared to earlier letters he wrote to other churches?  Maybe a sign of his aging and mellowing?  Maybe too, his own life experience, his struggles along the way and now his imprisonment and the possibility of his being executed there, have opened him up in an even greater way than before to God’s grace and to human graciousness because of it.

Whatever the reason, let’s enjoy this more gratefully encouraging side of the apostle Paul: 

I thank my God for you every time I think of you; and every time I pray for you all, I pray with joy because of the way in which you have helped me in the work of the gospel from the very first day until now. And so I am sure that God, who began this good work in you, will carry it on until it is finished on the Day of Christ Jesus.

You are always in my heart! And so it is only right for me to feel as I do about you. For you have all shared with me in this privilege that God has given me, both now that I am in prison and also while I was free to defend the gospel and establish it firmly. God is my witness that I tell the truth when I say that my deep feeling for you all comes from the heart of Christ Jesus himself.

I pray that your love will keep on growing more and more, together with true knowledge and perfect judgment, so that you will be able to choose what is best. Then you will be free from all impurity and blame on the Day of Christ. Your lives will be filled with the truly good qualities which only Jesus Christ can produce, for the glory and praise of God. 

Meditation

 

If there’s one word, one spirit that stands out for me in these opening lines of Paul’s letter, it’s gratitude.

 

I was in a meeting recently with a group of ministers in our region, and one of them shared what she calls her “gratitude practice” as a temporary minister to a troubled and struggling congregation.  She sends out cards, she says, on a regular basis – little notes of thanks to different church leaders for little things they do as leaders of the church, and for little ways they help the church and other members of the church carry out their calling and their mission.  And it makes all the difference in the world, she says.

 

A number of years I decided to do something similar.  We seemed to going through a bit of a rough patch at the church – were in a kind of low point, and I bought a box of cards to send to members who might appreciate an encouraging word of thanks for what they have done.  They were nice little art cards, with blank insides where a short personal message could be written.  I still have the box – still neatly and tightly wrapped, too.  I’m sure the members would have appreciated getting little notes like that.

 

 

Have you ever done that?  Failed to turn your good intentions into action?

 

I’m currently enrolled in an online course in the spirituality of Teresa of Avila, and the course is built around video teaching, personal reflection questions, and online discussion that all the people in the course – divided into groups or 20 or 25, can share in over the length of the course.  The discussion question the first week was to share what attracted us to the course, what we hoped to get from it, and what might be good for others to know about us.

 

We all wrote in, were free to reply to one another as we saw fit, and a woman named Susan Cooper who’s the facilitator for our group took the time to reply to each and every self-introduction that was offered.   And in fer reply she welcomed the new member and then took the time to highlight and celebrate one or two specific things they said about themselves that she saw as especially positive, that she got something from for herself, and that she encouraged them to build on, and feel good about themselves.

I wonder how often my approach to people – family, friends, people and committees here at the church, people I get to know wherever – I wonder how often my approach is focused more along the lines of what might be wrong with them, what they might be wrong about and need to learn from me, how they might need to change, and how I know exactly how they should be, or be doing things differently?

Quite different from how Paul addresses the Philippians, who also were wrong about things, would do well to learn a few things from him, and who needed to start acting differently than they were acting, but to whom nonetheless Paul starts his letter by saying: 

 “I thank my God for you every time I think of you; and every time I pray for you all, I pray with joy because of the way in which you have helped me in the work of the gospel from the very first day until now. And I am sure that God, who began this good work in you, will carry it on until it is finished on the Day of Christ Jesus.”

 

What high praise this is.  And what high encouragement this is of the people he is writing to.

 

I am grateful for you, he says, because of the way you and I have worked together and helped each other out in “the work of the gospel” – or as he says later, in together defending the gospel and establishing it in a world that is often opposed to it.

 

What does Paul mean by defending and establishing the gospel?

 

What he means is living out together among ourselves the way the world is meant by God to be for all.   

 

Not only giving thanks to Jesus for showing us God’s love to us, but also sharing that love with all we meet.   

 

Not only praying “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” but being a little outpost of the kingdom of God in the way we are church, and the way we are families, and the way we are in all our relations, letting the good will of God be done in everything we do separately and as a church.   

 

Not only letting Jesus save and heal us, but now living as Jesus lived for the sake of saving and healing whoever is near us, and whoever crosses our path.

 

And that’s not easy.  It’s not something we can do all by ourselves.  It’s often at odds with the way the world works and with what the world counts as sensible.  We really need the encouragement of one another to know what the way is, and how we can live it out – each of us in our own way, offering the kinds of gifts God has given us, bending our unique and often different – even clashing – personalities, to the one joy we share of being a body of Christ in all our different parts, for the good of the world.

 

And in the new normal this isn’t always easy.  It takes some thought, some intentionality and maybe some ingenuity – just as it did for Paul and the Philippians when the old normal of them getting together every now and then for a spiritual tune-up just isn’t there anymore.

 

In the old normal, we used to encourage one another in our mission and ministry together just by being together – in worship on a Sunday morning, in a meeting or a study group in the Lower Hall or the Upper Room, by working together at a whole host of church projects, sales, dinners and what-not.  Even just over coffee in the Lower Hall or at the Tim’s down the road after worship on a Sunday.

 

But without all that, with those things taken away and gone, how do we encourage one another, let one another know how grateful we are to be church and followers of Jesus together, strength the bonds we have and the effect we have on the world around us?

 

I don’t have the answers.  The answers are ours – are mine and are yours to discern and develop and put into practice, in our own lives and according to what makes sense to us.

 

But the question is one we share:  with the old normal gone, and the new normal still taking shape and changing around us, what ways can we find to keep one another going in a good direction?  What ways will we practice to let others know how grateful we are that we are church and followers of Jesus together?  How will we encourage one another in Jesus’ way of life, in a world that now as much as ever needs to see what it looks like and how it works?

A rainbow? He gives us a rainbow? (sermon etc from Sunday online worship, Sept 13, 2020)

 Opening Focus: “Walk with Me” (by John S. Rice, VU 649)

Walk with me, I will walk with you

and build the land that God has planned

where love shines through.

Reading:  Genesis 8:1-19, 9:8-15 (Good News Translation)

It’s good to know we’re not the only ones – not the first, and probably not the last generation of humanity to be going through what we’re going through.

 

At the start, 7 or 8 months ago when talk of a possible pandemic began to appear in the news, and then as it rose up and began like a giant wave to sweep over the whole earth, we used words like “unprecedented” and phrases “like never before” to describe what was happening.  But at the same time, we also knew this was not the first time we had faced something like this.

 

Suddenly, for instance, we remembered, and began to learn a lot about the waves of flu that devastated all nations of the world in the early years of twentieth century just after the devastation of WW1.  We wanted to learn from the past, so we could anticipate what our future might be, and act as responsibly and intelligently as we can in the present.

 

The reading today is from an even more distant past – so distant that it’s mythic in our memory, and instead of being recorded in old newspapers and newsreels it’s in our spiritual stories,in our bones and in the shared spiritual DNA of all humanity.  It’s the story of the Great Flood that swept over the face of the earth, trying to cleanse the world of impurity and evil, and this morning we read about how it ends, with a handful of human beings safe and sound in their ark of isolation and social distancing, coming back down to ground as the waters recede, their ark settles once again on solid land, and they prepare for the great re-opening and their coming out of isolation into the new normal.

 

So here’s the story:

God had not forgotten Noah and all the animals with him in the boat; (do you ever feel forgotten in the storms of your life, when you're isolated in your anxiety?) God caused a wind to blow, and the water started going down.  The rain stopped, and the water gradually went down for 150 days.  On the seventeenth day of the seventh month the boat came to rest on a mountain in the Ararat range.  The water kept going down, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains appeared. (wow … it took a long time, even after the rain itself was over, for the way to be clear)

After forty days Noah opened a window and sent out a raven.  It did not come back, but kept flying looking for a place to land.  Some time later, Noah sent out a dove to see if the water had gone down, but since the water still covered all the land, the dove did not find a place to light.  It flew back to the boat, and Noah reached out and took it in.  He waited another seven days and sent out the dove again. It returned to him in the evening with a fresh olive leaf in its beak. So Noah knew that the water had gone down. Then he waited another seven days and sent out the dove once more; this time it did not come back. (stages of re-opening and re-entry is not new; it’s as old as Noah)

Finally, when Noah was 601 years old, on the first day of the first month, the water was gone. Noah removed the covering of the boat, looked around, and saw that the ground was getting dry. By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry. (and we think we have a long time to wait!)

God said to Noah, “Go out of the boat with your wife, your sons, and their wives. Take all the birds and animals out with you, so that they may reproduce and spread over all the earth.” So Noah went out of the boat with his wife, his sons, and their wives. All the animals and birds went out of the boat in groups of their own kind.

… God said to Noah and his sons, “I am now making my covenant with you and with your descendants, and with all living beings—all birds and all animals—everything that came out of the boat with you… I promise that never again will all living beings be destroyed by a flood; never again will a flood destroy the earth. As a sign of this everlasting covenant which I am making with you and with all living beings, I am putting my bow in the clouds. It will be the sign of my covenant with the world. Whenever I cover the sky with clouds and the rainbow appears, I will remember my promise to you and to all the animals that a flood will never again destroy all living beings. When the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between me and all living beings on earth. That is the sign of the promise which I am making to all living beings.”

Meditation 

 

A rainbow.  Why a rainbow?  We’re talking about something to hold back the floodgates of fear that humanity maybe always has about the world maybe someday coming to an end.  Something to give us real hope in the darkest times of any age.  And God gives us a rainbow?

 

Don’t get me wrong.  Rainbows are pretty.  We put rainbow barettes in little girls’ hair when we want them to look nice.  We buy them little pink ponies to play with that have rainbows as part of their identity.  Boys and girls like the brightness and the look of all the colours of the rainbow all held together.  We have wonderful stories about pots of leprechaun gold at the ends of rainbows.

 

But what good is pretty, what good is nice décor, what good are fairy-tale legends against our mythic, primal fear of the world – either the whole world or even just our own personal world – coming to an end because of our evil and cosmic, divine displeasure?  What good is a colourful upside-down happy face on a piece of paper, when what we’re fearing is the end of our world as we know it?

 

I see three things this morning in the gift and sign of the rainbow.

 

One is that this rainbow is real, and something we all have experienced.  It’s the big one – the real one, up in the sky and one we’ve all seen that cannot fail but brighten and inspire the human heart as a natural sacrament of the presence of God. 

 

It comes after a storm and it surprises us each time it appears.  Storms of different kinds come and sometimes we really fear our powerlessness in the face of the elements, and the consequences maybe of our actions.  “Oh no!” our hearts whisper in the dark.  “Not again!  What have we have done, what have I done this time to have brought this on?  Surely I must deserve to be punished.  And this time is it maybe the end of the world?  The end of connection, of covenant, of community?"

 

Do you ever feel that way in some of the storms of your life – that all is lost, that the end of your world has come?

 

But then, no.  The end doesn't come.  The storm stops.  Judgement and punishment are not the last word.  The sky lightens, the sun shines and a rainbow reaches across the sky like a loving embrace and a witness to the greater and lasting power of forgiveness and hope, and of the God-given chance always to learn and move on together in a new way towards a new normal.  And whose heart is not lightened, whose spirit is not encouraged, whose hope for life is not renewed by the sight of it?  When we stop to remember the rainbows we have seen, we all know this is the way it goes, and is part of on-going life.

 

A second thing about the rainbow in our time is that it’s a strong and powerful symbol of inclusion and the inclusiveness of true human community, a symbol of shared commitment to a new and grander human community. 

 

All the colours of the rainbow held together as part of the spectrum of the whole of God’s light and glory, has become a symbol of PRIDE, of the movement for LGBTQ+ rights and acceptance.  A movement that today also overlaps with Me Too, Black Lives Matter, First Nations’ resurgence, and even the longing for more harmonious relations between humanity and the natural world – with any  movement and longing for life that is respectful of the deep and broad unity that God is, within and at the heart of all the diversity of life on Earth.  The rainbow is a strong and powerful symbol of our new and growing commitment to sustain, preserve and protect from destruction and obliteration all life and all shades and hues of the spectrum of life.

 

And one last thing is the kind of theology – a new way of understanding and imaging God that the rainbow points to.

 

Among the ancient peoples who told this story, told it again, and told it again and again until the story itself is fractured into all the forms in which it is remembered today, the bow and arrow was one of the great weapons of the hunter and the soldier.  A good archer was worth their weight in gold to any commander and king.  And if the archer were God, there would be no defence anyone could imagine.  So how can we not be fearful?  And that, in its start, is the fearsome kind of God we must deal with.

 

But God says, when it seems (to you and to me) the end has come, when it seems you have reason to fear great and ultimate judgement and punishment, and I see what my righteous anger has wrought, I will hang it up and not use it, put it up where you can see it, and where even I, God says, will be reminded of my promise from this point on not to be a God of vengeance and destruction, and not a God whose last word is judgment and punishment.  The rainbow, in other words, is a new and life-giving image of God.

 

The bow, God says, shall be the sign that I am not against you, or against any life I have created.  Rather, I am for you.  And as long as time is, I am on your side, working with you and for you for the good of all life together – for the good of all life within and under the rainbow of my loving care and delight.

 

This is my promise, God says.  This is the covenant I make with you.  And you can count on it, God says, from the days of your mythic past to the days of your current anxiety.  For as long as time is, I reach out to you and to others under and through the rainbow of my love.  And I invite you to work with me, be partners with me in making the new normal ahead of us to reflect my inclusive and healing love for all, now and always.

 

So yeah, the rainbow.  It gives us hope of a good new normal – a new normal maybe better than the old.

 

The rainbow helps us see life in a hopeful way, reminding us of what we know from of experience, that storms pass and a new day always comes.

 

The rainbow helps us see ourselves in a hopeful way, marking the growing commitment of people to build a world inclusive of all people and all life.

 

And the rainbow helps us see God in a hopeful way as well, as a God who also turns away from judgement and punishment as the last word, and towards embrace, encouragement and the commitment to serve and preserve the well-being of all people and all life on Earth.

 

Thanks be to God.