Sermon, Nov. 4, 2018

“The Saints Give Us Security”

As many of our saints that have brought us to the faith are now passed on to their glory; I realize the sorrow at this moment that may be in your heart.  Death, of course, is inevitable, and its pain, its loss, its cause for anger is all true and real. And the hard part about death is that we are in the business of tending its consequences; i.e., how our life has changed, without, I suspect, taking enough time for our personal sadness and grief.  Death has many small deaths within it; like the loss of a phone call, the loss of a hand to help us; the loss of a shoulder to cry on.  The mini deaths go on…

We live in, exist in, this constant state of in-betweenness, don’t we? The certainness of death and the grieving process and how to live the most of life here and now, how to give witness to the promise of the resurrection without it dismissing the reality of death in our midst here and now. Believing that loving our neighbors is never for the sake of eternal life after death, but always because it is a means by which death itself is overcome here and now…

“Love your neighbor as yourself” is a fitting testimony for All Saints Sunday.  According to Jesus, a mark of discipleship is this very act — loving your God, your neighbor as yourself. While All Saints Sunday reminds us of and remembers those who have died, it is also a call to present day saintly behavior. I make no claims to be a saint. But I think we come pretty-close when we act out this commandment. So that those who observe how we choose to live and be in the world will catch a glimpse of the sanctity of God’s love, the holiness of God, and that a life of sainthood does not mean perfection or having your own feast day. There can be another way of being in the world besides self-service, self-aggrandizement, autonomy, and narcissism. And yet there is hope when communities come together to help a child dying with cancer or a family burned out of their home.

When loving your neighbor becomes the first way to be in the world, the primary lens through which to view the world, the choice that you consciously make to live your life in your world, that is a radically different way to be than what our world of love self only adheres too on the most part.

Loving your neighbor is a saintly activity. The choice to love the neighbor does indeed set us apart from those who know only what it means to love their own selves and stop there. Others will know what sainthood looks like, not because we are better or holier than thou, but because we have been called to see outside of ourselves for the sake of seeing the world as God does; ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself’ — means your neighbor is as worthy of love as we are.

This passage from Mark, this Sunday, as we celebrate All Saints Sunday invites us to get outside of ourselves to sense what it feels like, what it means, to love the neighbor.  This is our security that our loving saints have given us; this is church…

Naomi and Ruth’s story is especially refreshing because it is a story of love between a mother-in-law and her daughter-in-law. This love brought Ruth to her new Hebrew religion.   Theirs is not a story of struggle and power over another like Hagar and Sarah; Rachel and Leah; Miriam and her sister-in-law. Their story is about loving your neighbour despite differences in age, nationality, and religion.  A loving relationship that stands the test of time.  It is the persistent love of Ruth for Naomi that helped heal her grieving for her lost husband and sons and the inability to bear another child.  Naomi sees new reasons to live because of Ruth’s gleaning the fields for food and other responsibilities of care for her.

What do you remember of the events that first brought you to church and into a family of faith?  Take a moment this week and reflect upon your faith journey.   My sister Ruth Ann who died last September 20, first took me to Sunday School and taught me that there is a world outside my family of origin. At three, I didn’t understand the impact that our faith would have on me.  Throughout my life the yearning of belonging to God and becoming a member of the United Church and being a servant for God has never left me.  I would love to hear your story and listen to your faith journey.  My sister and I and our relationship is a love story that held us up through many traumas in our life.  She was always there for me and I, for her.  Grieving is, in itself a journey where we too need the care of someone who will guide us to healing.

To care passionately about the quality of another person’s life, to respect each other’s choices, and to allow for each other’s differences: these are the lessons embedded in the Book of Ruth.  These are the gifts that our saints have taught the church from which we have security today.

“Christians who celebrate All Saints’ Day do so in the fundamental belief that there is a prayerful spiritual bond between those in heaven and the living.”

We know that our neighbour is actively mourning and needs your comfort and a word of hope. Maybe someone needs a call to action to those who are looking for new meaning in the midst of the death-dealing force. “See, I am making all things new,” says the one on the throne in Revelation. This statement contains comfort to those learning to live without a loved one, to those seeking a new job and means of livelihood, to those seeking new relationships after abuse, to those seeking new meaning in the midst of despair and depression. All of us in the faith community are the saints of God. Those saints we have known who are deceased inspire us as we remember them for they too faced the death-dealing forces of culture in their lives. One does not become a saint by being mild-mannered and timid. Through the lives of all saints, living and in heaven, there runs a strong thread of hope in God’s assurance of radical and complete transformation in the love and justice of God.

Let us take a moment and reflect upon the saints in our lives…..

Amen.

October 21, 2018 Sermon by Gloria Christian – World Food Day

Psalm 65:9-13

Mark 4:1-20

“Recognizing that Food is Sacred”

Recognizing food as sacred is not something uppermost in my mind, I must say.  I see the bread and juice as sacred during communion, but my everyday lunches and dinners are just gobbled to fill hunger.  We as a community of faith, as a denomination, and as earth creatures are called to understand seeds as sacred.

We have been celebrating God’s creation for some weeks now and this is the last Sunday of the time for creation.  We have been celebrating God’s creation of a self-sustaining web of life in which plants, animals, land, water, air and us as interwoven.

Many traditions affirm that food is an element in spiritual celebrations.  Maybe we can adopt the practice of affirming that eating is a sacred spiritual practice which celebrates the delicate connectedness we have with the seeds that make our food we eat possible.

So, I ask, what should we do to be more mindful of the sacredness of food while dining? Living alone, eating doesn’t feel very sacred.  I think, when we are eating, eating might be all we think about; the only thing we are honouring with our attention.  No phone or iPad within reach, no TV or radio on in the background.  Preferably not even speaking to others for a few minutes; just eat with our full attention to the food.  Just maybe, each bite might be approached with reverence, with full appreciation of where the food came from and the effort that went into preparing it.  Maybe we would pay attention to subtle flavours, textures, how each bite makes us feel, or the subtle differences that exist depending on the morsels that come together with each fork-full making each dish as appetizing for all the senses as possible and imagine the nutrients flowing through our bodies, nourishing every cell.  Would we then recognize food as sacred?  All we have to di is look at a malnourished child or adult to understand their pain and sorrow.  Perhaps then we would recognize food as sacred.

The following reflections of how and why seeds are sacred are given by two United Church folk:

Adrian Jacobs says Aboriginal people have a ceremony in spring to bless the seeds before the planting season. They also called corn, beans, and squash their ‘three sisters.’ This is in keeping with our view of creation as relatives, says Adrian e.g., elder brother sun, grandmother moon, grandfather thunder, and mother earth. The sustenance provided by food makes Haudenosaunee people happy. This is how they celebrate seeds as sacred.

From my other readings for this World Food Day, a seed contains in itself all the DNA necessary to produce a full-grown plant and fruit containing seeds for the future. In essence, in a seed is a universe of plants that expresses the wisdom and miracle of the Creator.  Adrian Jacobs is Cayuga First Nation of the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario. Jacobs is the Keeper of the Circle/Principal at the Sandy Saulteaux Spiritual Centre, in Beausejour, Manitoba.

Patricia Vickers another member of our church says,  “Where I come from, our soil is comprised of rock, sand, silt, and peat. There was no cultivation of medicinal plants in the past or present. The seeds must thrive without the assistance of our intervention. Plant medicine knowledge is passed on through the mother’s line. For females, one is shown by an aunty how to gather the plants that were once seeds.  She must search for where the seeds have grown into cedar, devil’s club, and spruce to assist others or self with purification.

“All life is sacred. A seed, in particular, is significant because a seed needs to be connected, in contact with all elements to grow, to become. We speak of thought as a seed, says Patricia, and the heart as the place where the seed grows. When one’s heart is not clean, it will not produce good thoughts, good seeds. The seed is the beginning; it is already the nature, the essence of what it will become. May our hearts hold good seeds.” Patricia Vickers’ heritage weaves ancestry from the United Kingdom and the Eagle Clan from the village of Gitxaala, British Columbia.

I’m not a gardener, although my father-in-law tried many years ago to help me with a garden; but you gardeners know of the sacredness of a seed and the miracle of its produce.  Going back to Patricia’s faith and belief that thought is a seed and the heart is the place the seed grows fits with our gospel reading this morning.

Jesus has something crucial to say in the Parable of the Sower. The parable is about different types of soil that receive the seed.  The seed is the word of God. The point of the story is that the sower, sowing the seed, obtains different results from different soil.

Whenever God’s Word is communicated the results depend on the fertility, the soil, of the hearer’s heart.

There were two methods of sowing seed in Jesus’ day. One was to balance a bag of seed on the back of a donkey, cut holes in either side of the bag and let the seed run out as the donkey walked over the ground. The other method was to throw the seed by hand. This latter method seems to be the picture Jesus had in mind.
The reason some seed “fell by the wayside” was that farmers left paths for travelers through their fields. This ground naturally would be hard-packed by the traffic. So, birds would quickly eat the seed which fell there.
The hearts of some folks have become so hardened by the world’s traffic that the seed of the Word cannot penetrate and the young plants, being rooted only in shallow soil, had no subsoil supply of water to draw upon. Therefore, the hot, midday sun dried up and killed those fragile sprouts.

it. They have heard too many false advertisements, bought too many lemons from fast-talking used car salesmen, been jilted by too many fickle lovers. Having been burned in the past, they are bitter and cynical and say People are no good; they are all liars and hypocrites. The preacher’s sermon is just one more sales pitch and the preacher just another con artist.
With such people the message goes in one ear and out the other. Nothing can get through the protective shell they have built around themselves.

Shallow hearers quickly drop out.  Galilee is underlaid with limestone rock. In some places this rock is covered only by a thin layer of soil. The early spring sun would warm this rock, which in turn kept the soil warm. Seed which feel on this soil would germinate quickly. But this warm soil contained little moisture Jesus remarked that God’s Word cannot take root in shallow hearts. Their unchurched friends mocked their newfound faith. It became a chore to get up on Sunday mornings. Suddenly these easily-won converts dropped out of sight as though they were in the FBI’s witness protection program! As Jesus said, “they are offended” when they find out it isn’t all a bed of roses; there are a few thorns too.

Even in the good soil the harvest varied, depending on how good it was. A hundredfold may seem like a bumper crop but ancient records show that in some cases such was possible.
Not all Christians have the same gifts, abilities or potential. Some produce more fruit than others, though all believers are commanded to bear some fruit. The point is that we are to bear as much fruit as we can with our individual talents. This happens as we move from being merely hearers of the Word to doers of it as well. For that is the mark of a responsive hearer. As Jesus cautioned, “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear”

Today as we think of World Food and the countless here and abroad who starve, might we think about the seed as sacred and how we sow our seeds, our faith and our generosity, are small ways we can help in the community to feed the hungry with Mission and Service dollars and with monies for outreach into the community from the Thrift Shop.  Amen.

Lakai

With reference to 1^st Samuel 16:1-13, and Mark 4:26- 32

Dear Lakai,

The first thing I want to say is, Thank You!  Thank you for the honour of asking me to baptize you today, just before I retire from a ministry that has been such a huge part of my life for the past 31 years.  The thing is, the seeds of this ministry go back much further… but I’ll tell you more about that a little later.

The seeds of your baptism go back a way too.  You have wanted to take this step in your life since before I met you – about four years ago.  Somehow, the timing was never just right, but you did not lose the feeling, and for that I am grateful, and I am also assured that God’s spirit is at work in you, in ways both you and the world shall yet discover.

Continue reading →

based on John 3:1-17

 This passage from John Chapter 3 is so familiar, that we must wonder if there is anything more to discover.  “For God so loved the world…”  But does anyone remember that happened in Chapter 2?

A quick recap – Jesus goes to a wedding and turns water into wine in Cana, then goes on to Capernaum with his mother, brothers and disciples and stays for a few days.  From there he travels to Jerusalem for the Passover Feast, arrives at the temple and immediately causes a ruckus by chasing out of the money-changers in the Temple courtyard.  Now, the other gospels put this event near the end of his ministry – and you can be pretty sure he only did it once!  So, what’s going on here?  Why is John’s gospel so different?

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Based on John 15:9-17  & Acts 10:44-48

 Although I am one of the few Canadians that does not have a smartphone, I am a tiny bit tech savvy – posting on the church website and using Facebook, mostly to keep up with what my adult children are doing, and now to see little videos of my adorable grand-baby.  Some time ago, on the Facebook wall, there was a post, featuring a picture of the lovely Johnny Depp.  And, while I am truly in love with my dear Jim, I confess that Johnny does have a certain… `hotness’ factor. So I appreciated the picture and read the poster. It said:

There are four questions of value in life…

What is sacred?

Of what is the spirit made?

What is worth living for, and what is worth dying for?

The answer to each is the same. 

Only Love. Johnny Depp. 

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