​Young at Heart Message

Today, I’m not just going to open a can of worms – I’m going to pop the top right off the can.

Let’s talk about social media.
​
Britannica defines social media as “a form of mass media communications on the Internet (such as on websites for social networking and microblogging) through which users share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (such as videos).” 
 
Examples of social media sites include: Facebook, Twitter (or X), Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, Snapchap, LinkedIn, YouTube, and probably several others I’m not even aware of.
 
Who here uses some form of social media at least some of the time?
 
Who knows someone who uses some form of social media at least some of the time?
 
Social media is pervasive in our society today.
 
At the start of 2025, 73% of Americans (about 253 million people) used social media.
 
I’m just going to venture a guess that numbers in Canada are quite similar.
 
Now, Britannica goes on to offer some pro’s and con’s of social media.
 
Those pro’s and con’s include:

And, I’m sure many of you could think of other pro’s or con’s that aren’t listed on Britannica’s website.
 
Social media certainly has some good qualities. It allows us to stay connected to friends and family across countries.
 
It allows us to share life events widely and keep people updated on our lives.
 
And, it can cultivate community through discussion groups and forums.
 
On the other hand, we can sometimes be almost too involved in other people’s lives.
 
Or, we can be too consumed by our own lives.
 
The perception can also be that everyone else’s life is awesome, and ours isn’t.
 
Why? Because most people only share the good parts of life on their social media. It can give the perception that life is rainbows and butterflies all the time.
 
But the other major thing about social media is our ability to feel like we are connected to other people – often to people we don’t even know – by simply clicking the “like” or “follow” button.
 
All the sudden, our social media apps are showing us videos and posts from the people we’ve liked or followed.
 
At the click of a button, we can be thrust into another person’s online world. We can almost feel like we know that person through their media platforms.
 
It is easy to get so caught up in the lives of others that we lose sight of the reality of our own lives.
 
People can quite literally get lost in the world of social media.
 
Following someone online is incredibly easy. Which also makes it incredibly easy for online personas to manipulate us into thinking  things that may not be true.
 
It requires nothing from us beyond a click to follow, and we suddenly feel like we are a part of a stranger’s life.
 
And, we don’t have to lift a finger or even leave our couch.
 
We can feel connected to these online personas without putting any of our own emotional effort into the relationship.
 
A relationship that’s easy, drama-free, and I don’t have to put any emotional, physical, or spiritual energy into it? Sign me up!
 
But, what do we really get out of a relationship like that?
 
The Message
 
We’ll come back to that question later. For now, this week’s Gospel passage begins in a Samaritan village.
 
We know that tensions existed between Jewish and Samaritan communities.
 
Jesus sent people ahead of their party to see if there could be a place prepared for them in the village.
 
However, they do not receive the welcome he expected.
 
It is tempting for us to assume that this Samaritan village was in the “wrong” for not welcoming Jesus into their community.
 
However, focusing on that assumption distracts from the deeper message in this story.
 
We are really being invited to observe how Jesus responds, even when he is inconvenienced.
 
Jesus recognized that the village was setting a boundary. He gave them a choice to say no, and they exercised their choice.
 
Immediately, two of his disciples get angry and ask him if he wants them to “command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?”
 
This question is pretty extreme, admittedly.
 
I imagine that if Jesus wanted that, he could have made it happen pretty easily on his own.
 
But more importantly, it’s worth noting that their immediate reply was to commit violence against an entire town for setting a boundary.
 
Jesus’ response, however, invites us to recognize that allowing others to have agency is an act of love.
 
Jesus does not punish the village’s “no” response.
 
Jesus reminds us that allowing agency and choice is a crucial practice of love.
 
The text then continues into a series of back-and-forth conversations of people naming something about how they want to follow Jesus.
 
Jesus responds to each inquiry by declaring that following him will cost them something.
 
While following someone on social media is as easy as clicking the “like” or “follow” button, following Jesus is not a spectator sport.
 
Following Jesus requires more than clicking and scrolling. It requires more than viewing his life from afar – from our couch or our chair.
 
Now, Jesus could of course let these people do the things they’re requesting that feel so crucial and necessary.
 
I would also want to bury my parent or tell my people at home that I was leaving.
 
However, the reason these were recorded was to show that following Jesus is costly and time-sensitive.
 
Jesus is saying, “Do you truly want to follow me in practice, or do you want to be seen following me as perception?”
 
In our social media context, it is the difference between sharing something with your online community, and sharing something with someone in real-life.
 
During COVID, we all were forced into a way of life that involved a lot of isolation.
 
One of the ways we combatted that isolation was through connection on social media.
 
At first, I found the social media connections comforting. I felt like I was in solidarity with everyone else who was struggling with the same things I was.
 
But eventually, I started to see the “underbelly” of social media, if you will.
 
People became nasty to one another. When we aren’t face-to-face with other people, we are far more comfortable saying unkind things that we would likely never say to someone’s face.
 
I became disgusted with social media to the point where I left it all entirely for a year. I removed the apps from my phone and stopped checking in on things completely.
 
I just let it rest. And I discovered a whole world of real people, believe it or not!
 
While in theory, my world got a lot smaller because I was only interacting with people I had direct connections to, my actual world got a lot more expansive.
 
My perceptions of others were no longer skewed because I was only seeing them through a social media lens.
 
And, likewise, people’s perceptions of me were no longer skewed, either.
 
And, perhaps most interestingly, no one seemed to miss me on social media at all.
 
So, when I said that Jesus was saying “Do you truly want to follow me in practice, or do you want to be seen following me as perception,” this is what I’m talking about.
 
Jesus wanted people to understand that following him meant giving themselves to him completely.
 
Not merely managing perceptions to make it seem like they were following Jesus without doing any of the actual work.
 
Jesus required they do the work to follow him.
 
And, Jesus requires the same from us.
 
Following Jesus is not just a simple click.
 
We have to put some skin in the game. He says, “No one who puts their hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
 
This is an invitation to remember that when your hand is on the plow, it’s time to work.
 
In other words, it is not enough to simply hold the tools. We must be willing to use those tools to move ourselves forward.
 
Just like it takes more than a click to follow, so it takes more than holding the tools to do the work.
 
So, may we be willing to pick up our tools and do the work of following Jesus.
 
And, may we be willing to make the sacrifices required to fully be part of the community of Christ followers. Amen.

Let us pray:

God, there are so many things we are grateful for in today’s world - technology advancements that have made our lives easier, have improved our health and our lifespans, and have allowed us to live safe and comfortable lives.

But in that technology, we have created problems for ourselves too, God. We often want quick fixes and instant gratification. Our patience is short and we want things right now.

We know, though, that when it comes to following Jesus, there are no quick or easy answers. There isn’t a quick fix or instant gratification - at least not in the way our society has led us to expect.
​
God, help us to listen for your ever-present voice. Help us to slow down, to be patient, and to settle in to your love and your grace. In your loving name we pray. Amen.

Young at Heart Message

I came across a video this past week that I’d seen several times before.

The video portrays a teacher in a classroom – probably a high school classroom.

She tells her class that the day’s lesson will start with an activity – an easy activity, so no one should feel stressed about it at all.
​
She then proceeds to pass out sheets of paper to her students.
 
She tells the students to keep the paper upside down until she tells them to start.
 
The instructions she gives for the activity is that when she tells them to flip their paper over, their task is to determine what the anagram for the words on the other side of the sheet of paper are.
 
For those of you who do not know what an anagram is, it’s a word that can be made out of another word.
 
For example, an anagram for the word “heart” would be “earth.”
 
So, she’s passed the paper out and she tells the class that this should be a very easy task for them.
 
She tells them to flip their paper over and work out the first anagram. When they are done, they should raise their hands.
 
In just a few seconds, the entire right side of the room has raised their hands.
 
The left side of the room, however, does not have a single person who has raised their hand.
 
The teacher once again tells them that it should be quite an easy task.
 
But, she says, let’s move on to the next one. Please do the second word on your list and raise your hand when you have figured out the anagram.
 
Again, the entire right side of the room raised their hands within a few seconds.
 
The left side of the room, getting more frustrated and exasperated at this point, has no one who has raised their hand.
 
Finally, she asks them to find the anagram for the third word.
 
Once again, the entire right side of the room has raised their hands. This time, a handful of people on the left side of the room have raised their hands, but most are still frustrated and have given up even trying.
 
The teacher then explains to the class that she handed out two different sheets to the different sides of the room. Here are words that were on their sheets:
 
Right side:                               Left Side:
 
Bat                                             Whirl
Lemon                                      Slapstick
Cinerama                                 Cinerama
 
The first two words on the right side’s sheet were incredibly easy.
 
Bat = Tab
Lemon = Melon
 
The first two words on the left side sheet were impossible because there aren’t any anagrams for those words:
 
Whirl
Slapstick
 
Now, what’s interesting is that both sides of the room had the same third word.
 
Cinerama = American
 
The right side of the room all got it quickly because they had been reinforced by the prior two words that not only could they do it, but that it was easy.
 
The left side of the room, on the other hand, were given an impossible task. They were not reinforced by getting the first two words correct because they couldn’t get them correct.
 
And, they were told that the task was easy several times.
 
Additionally, their counterparts on the other side of the room made the task look easy, so the left side of the room didn’t understand why it wasn’t easy for them.
 
By the time the teacher got to the final word, most of the students on the left side of the room believed that they were not capable of figuring out the anagrams, so they gave up trying, even though the third word was achievable.
 
The teacher then explained to them that in 5 minutes or less, she induced learned helplessness.
 
Is anyone familiar with learned helplessness?
 
According to the American Psychological Association, learned helplessness occurs when someone repeatedly faces uncontrollable, stressful situations and does not exercise control when it becomes available.
 
Essentially, they have “learned” that they are helpless in that situation and they no longer try to change it, even when change is possible.
 
Learned helplessness can occur in children or adults, and it can manifest differently in different age groups. It can even occur in animals.
 
A child might, for example, work really hard at learning something, but then fail the test on that subject. If this happens too many times, that child may begin to feel like no matter how hard they work, they cannot understand the concept.
 
Soon, they may lose confidence not only in that task, but in other tasks as well. They may begin to think they are dumb and can’t learn anything.
 
In adults, it can manifest in a lot of different ways. Some examples might include:
 
·       People who have tried to quit smoking several times, but have not been able to maintain it may begin to believe they will never be successful at quitting smoking
·       Similarly, people who try to lose weight but gain much of it back may conclude that it isn’t worth even trying to lose weight
·       Someone may repeatedly try to interview for jobs and not get hired and may start to believe they are not capable of getting a job
 
The point here is that learned helplessness can be detrimental to a person’s mental and physical wellbeing.
 
Once a person believes they are incapable of something, they are less motivated and less willing to keep trying that thing, and that will sometimes extend to other things as well.
 
Learned helplessness can increase feelings of depression, anxiety, and stress in both humans and animals.
 
The Message
 
I bring this concept up because in today’s scripture, we encounter “Legion,” a man supposedly possessed by a “legion” of demons or evil spirits.
 
Many people are bound. I would say that most of us are bound by something, even if we don’t know it - anxiety, fear, unforgiveness, anger, bitterness, disappointment, distraction, memories of the past, etc.
 
The things we are bound by can affect our perceptions, experiences, and quality of life.
 
This man is bound and likely doesn’t even know it. Or, he knows it, but has an extreme case of learned helplessness and at this point in his life, he doesn’t believe anything can be done about his situation.
 
He is so used to being treated as some kind of disease or inferior human being that when he encounters Jesus, he says “I beg you, do not torment me.”
 
This man has learned that when people interact with him, they torment him – they chain him and treat him like he’s not worthy of love or care or compassion.
 
So, he expects the same from Jesus.
 
This man is alive, but he’s living in a dead place – literally in the tombs. But he’s also in a dead place in his own mind.
 
He has been isolated from family, community, and society.
 
And that isolation just creates more demons in his mind.
 
This man probably started out with one challenge – maybe a mental health issue like PTSD, anxiety, depression, or another mental ailment.
 
And then he started to be treated like he was nothing – unworthy, incapable, maybe even dumb or dangerous.
 
And he started to believe that about himself.
 
And soon, he was tormented by the demons in his own mind that caused him to be this way.
 
Then, he encounters Jesus, and Jesus sets him free from the prison of his own mind.
 
The psalm we heard in our first reading is like a soundtrack in the background of this man’s life story.
 
It is a lament crying out in prayer: “But you, O Lord, do not be far away! O my help, come quickly to my aid.”
 
Nowadays, it is not popular or “politically correct,” to talk about demons or demonic possession.
 
We know a lot more about how the human mind works now. It is likely that many of the people Jesus encountered had some kind of diagnosable mental health condition that was seen at that time as demons.
 
And yet, despite this, healing these ailments is a central part of Jesus’ ministry.
 
Jesus encounters people who are bound, and he sets them free – even and especially from devils, demons, and unclean spirits.
 
Jesus isn’t afraid to address these things, and the most beautiful part is that Jesus does not judge or condemn the people.
 
He sees them as fully human, fully alive, and fully deserving of respect, kindness, and compassion.
 
Today, many people are a lot like the man in this scripture.
 
Perhaps not as dramatic as his story, but many of us are bound by things that keep us from living our lives to the fullest.
 
We are bound by things that keep us from fully living into our humanity, and we often believe that because we are bound, we are not worthy of Jesus’ love.
 
But Jesus proves time and time again that we are worthy of his love and care.
 
What does freedom look like, according to this story?
 
It is not a literal unchaining.
 
True freedom requires surrender to Jesus.
 
When this man sees Jesus, he falls down before him.
 
As I mentioned, we often do not know or acknowledge our own chains or our own bondage.
 
We are, however, very good at identifying other people’s chains or places of bondage, aren’t we?
 
We may even be able to call out systemic or societal bondage.
 
But, we are very often prevented from coming to Jesus and surrendering our whole hearts and selves to deliverance from the things that keep us bound.
 
Arrogance, fear of shame, or the masks we wear keep us happily oblivious to our own chains.
 
When the man falls down before Jesus, he acknowledges the power of God in him.
 
Falling before Jesus and seeing our own chains for what they are is not an easy task.
 
True freedom also means being restored to community.
 
When the man was bound by his demons, he existed in isolation.
 
When Jesus freed him, he was able to rejoin his community.
 
We often forget about the power of community – the power of kindness, love, respect, and compassion from other people.
 
Our chains often keep us bound in ways that prevent us from fully living into our own humanity, and fully living into our lives in community with others.
 
So, the first step in breaking our own chains and freeing ourselves from whatever binds us is to kneel before Jesus and acknowledge the chains.
 
Each one of us has different chains though, that’s the challenge.
 
I may need to acknowledge the chains of anxiety that keep me from being truly alive to my own humanity. But maybe someone else here needs to see their shame, regret, fear, or distraction from reality.
 
Jesus doesn’t care what our chains look like, he just wants to free us from them.
 
So, may we look upon our own chains, lifting whatever binds us to Jesus and allowing him to set us free.
 
May we begin the process of working through our own points of bondage so that we can live fully, joyfully, and purposefully into the bodies, minds, and spirits we have been given.
 
And may we thank Jesus for loving us through it all. Amen.

Let us pray:

Amazing and glorious God, we come before you today with the things that bind us in plain view. We’ve always known that we cannot truly hide our chains from you, but we have tried our hardest nonetheless. But today, we are ready to kneel before you, chains and all, ready to be freed. Free us, Jesus, so that we can become fully alive and fully human. Amen.

Young at Heart Message

You all won’t believe this, but guess what?

I magically received $10,000 yesterday! I can’t tell you how, because it’s top secret, highly classified information.

But, I wanted to share this news with all of you because I need help figuring out what do with all that money!

Will you help me?
 
OK, I thought of 8 different ways I could handle this new influx of cash:
 
1. Get an awesome new tattoo
2. Use it for a down payment on a new car
3. Donate it to charity
4. Save it all
5. Shopping spree
6. Take a vacation to Hawaii
7. Invest it
8. Throw a huge party
 
I can’t decide, so I thought maybe we could narrow it down together.
 
I have three different ways I thought we could try to answer this question together.

1.   Fortune Teller
2.   Magic 8 Ball
3.   Panel of wise people
 
Do you think these are reasonable ways to decide how to spend $10,000?
 
Let’s test it out.
 
Let’s start by asking the fortune teller. I’ve made this paper fortune teller, and inside of it is each of the 8 options.
 
I just need a volunteer to help me choose.
 
Once we have the option the fortune teller chooses, we’ll ask the Magic 8 Ball and see if it agrees with the decision. 
 
I don’t have an actual Magic 8 Ball, so we’ll have to use an app on my phone. Sound OK? Let’s try it.
 
All right, we narrowed down our answer.
 
But, it seems like it would be wise to verify the answer with a panel of wise people from the congregation.
 
I need three wise volunteers to say yes or no to our choice. Can three people raise their hands?
 
All right, we have our final decision!
 
What do you all think? Was this a good way to make a big decision?
 
Of course not. It’s a highly unusual decision-making process, for starters.
 
It also doesn’t leave any room for other ideas, other options, doing more than one of those things, or for the movement of the Spirit in a decision of this magnitude.
 
When we think about wisdom, we don’t usually think that making a decision using these methods would be wise, at least not in the long-term.
 
I once heard a story about a bank president who was retiring. He and his successor met one day for lunch.
 
The new guy said, “Sir, I have been watching you for years as this bank has grown. I hope to follow in your footsteps. Can you give me some advice? What are the keys to your success?”
 
The retiring president simply said, “Make wise decisions.”
 
His replacement replied, “How do I make wise decisions.”

The president said, “In one word, ‘experience’”

“And how do you get experience?”

The president said, “In three words, ‘make unwise decisions.’”

And so we encounter the limitation of human wisdom: we become wise by making unwise mistakes.
 
Experience thus far has taught me that choosing how to use $10,000 wisely should not be left to a paper fortune teller or a Magic 8 Ball.
 
In fact, it might not even be wise to leave that decision entirely up to the 3 wise people we asked in our process.
 
Why? Well, while they may have significant life experience, they aren’t necessarily well informed about my own life circumstances.
 
The advice they might offer may not be helpful or relevant to my own decision-making process.
 
So, I’d like to try one more thing.
 
I would like to take a moment to invite God into this decision-making process with me.
 
What might happen if I ask what God might want for me in this situation? How might God suggest I use this money?
 
Let’s all take a moment to see if there is any movement of the Spirit around this question.
 
Now, I don’t have time to ask each one of you how God might have responded to this question.
 
But, I can tell you that when I took time to invite God in, the answer wasn’t any one of these things.
 
I certainly don’t think God would care if I got a new tattoo, a new car, went on a shopping spree, took a vacation to Hawaii, threw a party, or even saved, invested, or donated it.
 
What I think God would want is for me to try to make the wisest decision based on the information I have available.
 
Maybe it’s the case that I’m feeling extremely burnt out, and the best thing for me would be to actually take a vacation. Then perhaps I should go to Hawaii. This money would be a blessing.
 
Or, maybe I’ve postponed buying new clothes and shoes because I haven’t been able to afford them, and my clothes are so worn out that it’s questionable as to whether or not I should even wear them anymore. If that’s the case, perhaps I should go on a shopping spree. Once again, the money would be a huge blessing.
 
Or, perhaps I’ve been feeling lonely since moving to Calgary.
 
Maybe inviting everyone I know here in Calgary to be in community with me would help alleviate my feelings of loneliness?
 
If that’s the case, then perhaps throwing a huge party would be the wisest use of that money.
 
Once again, if that were the scenario I find myself in, the money would be a blessing that would allow me to feel less lonely.
 
I could make a similar argument for each thing on my list.
 
So, while we initially may have thought some of these things would be unnecessary or unwise ways to spend the money, when we invite God into the decision and we look closer at the situation, some of those things don’t seem so silly anymore.
 
And here is where we might invite God, or Spirit, or Wisdom to walk with us on our journey.
 
The Message
 
Wisdom, as portrayed in Proverbs, is presented in the feminine.
 
This is important only insofar as we aren’t accustomed to thinking about anything related to the divine in terms of the feminine.
 
Proverbs begins by saying “with great understanding, Wisdom is calling out as she stands at the crossroads and on every hill.”
 
Wisdom is calling out to us at every crossroads.
 
She is not calling out to place judgement, shame, or uncertainty on us as we face a crossroads.
 
She is calling out to each and every one of us to guide us on our own paths. The path that is right for me may not be the path that is right for you.
 
In John 16, Jesus promises us that the Spirit “will come and guide us into the full truth.”
 
Wisdom speaks as though she was there when the world was created.
 
So, too, was the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ.
 
Each of these was given to us to walk with us on our path.
 
Wisdom journeys with us, woven through God, Jesus Christ, and the Spirit.
 
God created us as individuals – uniquely loved and adored by our Creator, and placed here with purpose and intention. We may not know what that purpose or intention is, but God’s infinite Wisdom does.
 
Jesus Christ came to offer guidance and love, and to model Wisdom for us. Jesus incorporated Wisdom into everything he did and said such that we could use him as an example even still today.
 
And then, Jesus offered us the gift of the Holy Spirit when he could no longer be here with us.
 
Known as comforter, advocate, guide, counsellor, and Wisdom herself, the Holy Spirit surrounds us with the love and adoration of God the Father,  Christ the Son, and Mother Spirit.
 
When we invite Spirit to help us respond to the questions we encounter in our lives, we put our trust fully in God.
 
Wisdom is a creation of God that God then used to create and order the world.
 
As we dance with Wisdom we learn to love God, to turn from evil and embrace what is good.
 
We seek out and learn from our counsellors.
 
We desire knowledge and experience that lead us to better lives.
 
We learn to think before we speak and always use gracious words.
 
With Wisdom dancing at our side we can help the poor, and build up the church.
 
Today is Trinity Sunday, during which we tend to focus on the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
 
But we cannot forget about Lady Wisdom.
 
We must learn to invite her, along with Spirit, to guide and lead us, and we must begin to ponder how to do that in practice.
 
Because if we do not invite them to help us, we are left with Fortune Tellers and Magic 8 Balls.
 
In other words, we leave our lives to chance. And that may work for a little while, but God desires more for and from us.
 
God created us with intention and purpose, filling us with light and love to share.
 
As such, we are called to bring God alongside us in everything we do, as much as possible.
 
And that includes making big decisions in our lives.
 
It is not always easy to bring God along or invite God to help us make decisions. It is much easier to rely on the Fortune Tellers and Magic 8 Balls.
 
It also gives us a scapegoat if we make a mistake!
 
On the other hand, the mistakes we have made and – hopefully – learned from, have brought us to this point here today.
 
So, the reality is that we don’t need a scapegoat when we make a mistake in our decision-making.
 
We simply need to invite God to help us and, if things end up going sideways, we need to trust in the learning and experience that goes along with that “mistake.”
 
In the end, there is often something new and, perhaps something better, that comes from our mistakes.
 
So, may we walk boldly and bravely into a new way of seeing the world.
 
May we work to invite God, through Wisdom and the Holy Spirit, to help us discover our intention and purpose, and to help us use the light within us for good in a world in which good can sometimes be hard to find.
 
And, like Jesus Christ, may we live out the words of our offertory response: “a world in need now summons us to labor, love, and give; to make our life an offering that others too may live.” Amen.

Young at Heart Message

I want to begin today’s message by sharing a story with you from my “former life.”

As most of you know, I owned a dog daycare, boarding, and training facility before I became a pastor.
​
I started that business primarily because I wanted to do dog training. I wasn’t as interested in the daycare/grooming/boarding aspect of the business.
 
Of course, it grew into much more than training, but originally, my primary focus was on dog training.
 
When I first started dog training, I created a curriculum that I used when I taught training classes.
 
That curriculum was built based on what I had learned in my training programs to become a dog trainer and based on some of the techniques I learned while working with clients directly.
 
The curriculum included all the basic things you would think a training class curriculum might include:

·       Sit
·       Lay down
·       Stay
·       Come when called
·       Relax on a mat or bed
·       Walking politely on leash
 
All the things every dog owner needs to know, right??
 
I had what I thought was a pretty good system for running a training class.
 
And, my clients overall were happy with how the classes ran. They felt like they accomplished what they came for, and it was well-run.
 
At the same time, I was part of a professional organization for dog trainers, and that group had an active online discussion forum through Facebook.
 
One day, one of my colleagues asked how we ran our dog training classes and if people liked the classes. Specifically, they wanted to know how we taught people to teach specific behaviours.
 
I responded to the question by saying that I teach using this curriculum, and I teach the basic behaviours I listed earlier.
 
But I also said that I don’t teach my own dogs the way I teach my clients. In fact, I don’t really teach any of those things I listed in the way I might teach a client.
 
The person who asked the question in the forum asked me why I don’t teach my clients the same way I would teach my own dogs.
 
And that question really got to me! So much so that I ended up changing my entire curriculum for training classes to teach the way I teach my own dogs.
 
What I realized was that I was teaching training classes the way clients thought they wanted to be taught because it’s what they were told they needed to learn.
 
It wasn’t what they actually needed or wanted to learn.
 
What most dog owners believe they need to teach their dog is how to respond to cues when given.
 
Many people think that in order to have a well-behaved dog, they must be able to respond immediately to whatever commands we give.
 
If we holler “sit” or “stay” or “come,” they better listen. And if they listen perfectly, they are a well-behaved dog.
 
The problem is, most people quickly learn that even if their dog can respond perfectly (which is unlikely without a lot of practice and consistency) to every command they give, they still might have a dog that…

·       Jumps on people
·       Gets into the garbage
·       Barks obsessively
·       Chews on the walls
·       Pulls on leash
·       And any number of other “bad” behaviours
 
So, why do people believe that teaching their dogs how to respond to commands is the best way to train them?
 
Well, because that’s what they’ve always been taught.
 
It’s funny because when people interact with my dogs, they will cue them to sit or lay down or shake or roll over, and my dogs look at them like they are aliens. The only cues my dogs really know are “sit” and “go lay down.”
 
And yet, for the most part, my dogs are pretty calm and settled dogs, except perhaps the first 5 minutes a new person walks in the door.
 
When I changed my class curriculum, I started teaching people simply how to teach their dogs to calm down and settle – basically, how to relax.
 
If your dog knows how to relax and settle on their own, you don’t need to teach them any “commands.” They just do it because they’ve learned those are the expectations.
 
So, I share this lengthy story for a reason.
 
As I was speaking with my spiritual director the other day, I shared this with her because we were talking about worship services and creative ways to allow for the movement of the Holy Spirit in the context of worship services.
 
She wondered if there was anything that could be learned from my experience running dog training classes.
 
Specifically, she wondered if there was a similar sentiment among worshipping communities, including our own, which involves people believing worship needs to look a certain way because that’s the way it’s always looked, but perhaps needing something more and not even realizing it.
 
And, she wondered if I believed that worship needed to look a certain way because that’s the way it’s always been done.
 
And truthfully, I still need to mull this over.
 
But it got me wondering about how people worship God outside of worship services.
 
Before I went on vacation, we made a list of the things we do well as a church, and the things we needed to work on.
 
And one of the biggest things I took away from that was the tremendous sense of community that we share here at Good Shepherd.
 
We are together once a week on Sunday mornings.
 
Many of us gather in smaller groups for various other things throughout the week – either church-related or perhaps social gatherings.
 
But, most of the time, most of the people here connect with God on their own or in their own communities or with their own loved ones outside of worship service.
 
So, I am curious… in what ways do you feel the movement of the Holy Spirit or connect with God outside of worship services?
 
Here are a few examples I came up with to get us started:

·       Walking at Nose Hill
·       Knitting
·       Reading
·       Journaling
·       Baking/Cooking
·       Silence
·       Prayer
·       Yoga/Stretching/Deep Breathing
 
So, let’s take a few minutes to have you share some of the ways you connect with God outside of worship services.
 
Our A/V team will help us create a list again.
 
The Message
 
Today is Pentecost, so of course that means we think more about the gift of the Holy Spirit today than we might some other times of the year.
 
And I believe that the conversation I had when I was a dog trainer was the Holy Spirit speaking to me through a colleague.
 
So I wanted to do this exercise with all of you today because I think the Holy Spirit has been trying to speak to me now, too.
 
These questions about how we experience God in our every day lives are important.
 
We tend to focus our energy on our once-weekly Sunday worship, but so many of us clearly experience God and the movement of the Holy Spirit in so many other ways, too.
 
And of course there is value in our time together on Sundays!
 
I just wonder if the Holy Spirit might be moving us to think differently about worship.
 
Since today is Pentecost, it feels like a good day to think about this. And, because we are heading into the summer season, it also seems like a good time to think about experimenting a little bit with worship.
 
We’ve done this a few times before. We held a worship service in a circle after the Christmas party, and people seemed to enjoy that.
 
Perhaps it’s not an every week thing, but experimenting sometimes can be valuable.
 
So, I hope to consider doing a few new things during worship and I welcome your feedback after the services.
 
I hope we can have fun this summer and think about how we are in community together and how we feel God moving among us.
 
Is God calling us? If so, for what?
 
Let’s explore together this summer.
 
Maybe there are elements of God-connections that we’ve been missing out on?
 
Maybe there will be some deep movement of the Holy Spirit in the holy space between us that has not been tapped into?
 
Maybe “the Spirit will teach [us] everything and will remind [us] of what [Jesus] said while [he] was with [us].”
 
Let us open our hearts in Jesus’s name. Amen.
 
Let us pray:

God of Wind and Fire, on this Pentecost Sunday, we are more aware than ever of our deep need for you. It's true—we do not know how to pray. We do not know how to form on our lips the words to express the prayer that lingers on our hearts. Thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit— comforter, teacher, inspiration, and translator of every soul's deepest needs.
 
Guide and bless all of us today God. Free us from whatever safeguards we have placed around us to keep our lives and worship predictable. Free us to encounter you in a new way, that your Spirit might truly dance in our midst and inspire us to love and service in Christ's name.

God, bless us as we encounter the Spirit-filled celebration of this day.

Amen.

Young at Heart Message

Did you know that there are an estimated 45,000 different Christian denominations across the globe?

45,000!

By comparison, there are only 195 countries recognized in the world.
​
If distributed evenly among all countries, each country could have 230.76 Christian denominations.
 
Of course, that says nothing of non-Christian faith traditions.
 
I don’t know about you, but this absolutely fascinates me.
 
So much so that I have a poster in my office titled “Christian Denominations Family Tree.”
 
Here’s a picture of the full poster:

​Obviously, you can’t see anything in that photo, and I did take photos of the different sections, but I still don’t think you can see much if I share those.
 
So, if you want to look at the full chart, pop into my office and have a look.
 
Now, I will say that I have no idea how we get to 45,000 different denominations. There are 165 colored boxes on this chart which represent different denominations.
 
45,000 is mind-blowing!
 
Just to give us an idea of what the denominational splits look like, let’s just look at the Roman Catholic Church, which most of us are at least somewhat familiar with.
 
Under the Roman Catholic Church, we see the Maronite Catholic Church, Chaldean Catholic Church, Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church, Coptic Catholic Church, Syriac Catholic Church, Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, Melkite Greek Catholic Church, Armenian Catholic Church, Union of Utrecht, Aglipayan Church, Sedevacantists, and SSPX.
 
Who has heard of all of those?
 
I certainly haven’t. In fact, other than “The Roman Catholic Church,” I really hadn’t heard of any of the others.
 
For what it’s worth, the Moravian Church falls under what I would call “Protestant-Adjacent.”
 
Here’s where we are on the chart (and, it’s worth mentioning that it’s impressive that we made the chart at all!).

It would be fascinating to do an in-depth study of the different denominations to understand what really are the differences between all of these different denominations.
 
My guess is that if you asked the leadership of each denomination, they would all say there are important differences between their theologies and polities.
 
But, if you ask individual church members, I bet many would say they really don’t know or see much of a difference.
 
Now, the much bigger question is, what would Jesus think about all of our different denominations?
 
Would he be happy to see such diversity among Christians, or would he be saddened to think that we’ve split into so many different denominations over likely very minor differences in theology or polity?
 
What about the churches that split over social and cultural disagreements that have nothing to do with theology?
 
Unfortunately, we can’t truly answer these questions because Jesus isn’t sitting here with us today.
 
But, let’s look at Jesus’s prayer and see what we can gain from him anyway.
 
The Message
 
Today’s scripture reading is actually Jesus praying to God at the Last Supper.
 
He’s not talking to his disciples, although they certainly overhear the prayer.
 
He is talking directly to God, which makes this passage extremely powerful, both to the disciples and to those of us reading it still today.
 
Jesus starts out by saying “I am not praying just for these followers. I am also praying for everyone else who will have faith because of what my followers will say about me.”
 
Everyone else. Including, presumably, those of us sitting in this room today. That’s a powerful prayer.
 
Jesus gets right to the point: “I want all of them to be one with each other, just as I am one with you and you are one with me. I also want them to be one with us.”
 
He repeats this again further on in the passage.
 
“I want all of them to be one with each other, just as I am one with you and you are one with me.”
 
If you’ve ever wondered about your own unanswered prayers, I would go out on a limb here and say that even Jesus had at least one unanswered prayer.
 
If our discussion about denominations taught us anything, it’s that we are far from “one with each other.”
 
In fact, there are some Christian denominations that will go so far as to say that their denomination is the only true and right path to God, and all others will lead to hell.
 
This certainly doesn’t give us warm and fuzzy feelings of unity and oneness with each other, does it?
 
On the other hand, there are many denominations, including the Moravian Church, that believe strongly in our oneness despite our differences.
 
This is one of the primary reasons I landed in the Moravian Church.
 
I was drawn to what many call the “Moravian Motto.” It goes like this:
 
“In essentials, Unity;
In non-essentials, Liberty;
In all things, Love.”
 
What does this mean, exactly? Let’s break it down.
 
“In essentials, Unity”
 
On the surface, this sounds easy enough. We can be united in the essential things!
 
But… what exactly are the essential things?
 
Probably not what you’d think.
 
The essential things, according to the Moravian Church, are: A belief in God as creator, Christ as redeemer, and the Holy Spirit as Sustainer.
 
And, it is essential that we respond to those gifts of God with faith, love, and hope.
 
That’s it. Those are the six essential things.
 
I’ve done a whole sermon series talking about each of these things in the past, and I don’t have time to do that today, but as you can see, those six essential things are common among many – if not all – Christian denominations.
 
Therefore, we see ourselves as united with other Christian denominations.
 
And of course, there are individual churches within the Moravian Church who have decided to split from our denomination over certain social issues.
 
But by and large, across the globe, the Moravian Church has managed to remain a unified church because of our deep-rooted belief in these essentials.
 
We may disagree on some things – like whether or not we should ordain women, or people who aren’t heterosexual, or people who don’t conform to traditional gender identities.
 
“In non-essentials, Liberty”
 
But, none of those things are essential.
 
And, the second line in our well-known phrase is “In non-essentials, Liberty.”
 
In other words, with regard to the things we don’t agree on outside of the six essential things, we believe in the freedom to choose.
 
So, we might disagree on some of those social issues I mentioned – either with another denomination or, sometimes, within our own church.
 
“In all things, Love”
 
But, our approach to these disagreements is to approach these things with love.
 
Are we perfect at it? Of course not, because our church is still led by human beings who have their own biases, flaws, challenges, and ways of thinking.
 
In general, however, we try to approach these kinds of disagreements with love.
 
This philosophy has allowed the Moravian Church to develop strong connections with other denominations, not just in Canada and the US, but across the globe.
 
So, back to the comment I made earlier about Jesus’s prayer being unanswered…
 
I wonder if it truly was unanswered, or if he simply couldn’t have anticipated the trajectory the church would take?
 
Jesus clearly recognized that people are very different and unique, and he could tell even from his relatively small circle of the world that people really struggle to be unified.
 
But, if we can at least be unified in the six essentials, we can expand our notion of “unity” further and recognize that many other Christian denominations see those same things as essential.
 
We can continue to live out our faith within our own context while also recognizing that our way isn’t necessarily the only true and right way.
 
And that’s OK!
 
Because at the end of the day, as always, we are called to love.
 
Simply love. Love first, and the rest will fall into place.
 
May we work to honour Jesus’s prayer for us, that we would be one with each other, just as Jesus is one with God and God is one with Jesus.
 
And may we do this with love. Amen.
 
Let us pray:
​
God of compassion, thank you for loving us deeply and unconditionally, even when we miss the mark. Thank you for sending your Son, Jesus Christ, to pray for us, teach us, guide us, love us, and show us the path that you set before us. Help us to continue loving one another, even when it is difficult, and help us to learn to live in unity with each other so that we can work to live out Jesus’s prayer for us. All of this we pray in your Holy name. Amen.

Young at Heart Message

This past week, I had the opportunity to attend the morning session of a workshop put on by the Calgary Alliance for the Common Good.

I will admit that when I showed up there, I was not expecting to be participating in this workshop.
​
I was expecting it to be a conversation with my Lutheran colleagues around the concept of “welcoming the stranger.”
 
It turned out to be an ecumenical gathering of Christians from a number of different denominations, including a Deacon in the Catholic Church.
 
The topic was still about “welcoming the stranger,” so at least I got that part right.
 
I was only there for a few hours, but what I took away just from that morning session was priceless – it gave me a lot to think about in terms of our ministry here at Good Shepherd.
 
We began that session by introducing ourselves and answering a few questions about our faith and our churches.
 
I thought it might be of value today to take a few minutes to answer some of these questions ourselves.
 
We won’t have time to go around the whole room and ask everyone here the questions, but as we have done several times before, I would love to hear at least some of your answers to these questions.
 
I would also like to ask our AV team to summarize our answers for us so we can mull over our answers, perhaps another day.
 
So I have three questions that I want to ask today. I will ask one question at a time. I’d like to give one minute of silence after I ask the question for you to think about it before I ask for responses.
 
The first question is this:
 
Why does this church matter to you?
 
What does our church do well?
 
What could our church do better?
 
Wonderful, thank you to everyone who responded!
 
These questions aren’t necessarily easy questions, and the final question especially requires some significant self-awareness among our membership to be able to really dive into the things we could do better as a community.
 
And of course, these are questions we can continue to ponder and wonder about together as we move forward as a community of Christ followers.
 
The Message
 
But, now that we’ve answered those questions for ourselves, let’s talk about why these questions matter.
 
Many of our answers to these questions beg more questions.
 
For example:
 
·       What is the role of the church?
·       Why do we need it?
·       What is our responsibility to it?
 
And, perhaps the most important question we must ask is this: what would Jesus think about the way we do church?
 
In our scripture passage today, Jesus’ words were clear:
 
Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
 
That’s it.
 
And yet, within those fourteen simple words derives a tremendous amount of complexity and uncertainty, it seems, in our world today.
 
We don’t always love one another, do we?
 
There are some people in the world who seem incredibly difficult to love.
 
But Jesus didn’t say “love one another… except…”
 
He said “love one another…” period.
 
I wonder, then, if this is the guidance we need to determine the answers to some of the questions we asked earlier.
 
·       What is the role of the church?
·       Why do we need it?
·       What is our responsibility to it?
 
It seems to me, the answer must have something to do with loving one another.
 
One of the things that came up in the workshop this week was a phrase I hadn’t heard before, but which really resonated with me.
 
It is the idea of “poverty of experience.”
 
What does this mean?
 
Well, I took it to mean that, very often, we lack perspective on things we have not personally experienced before.
 
I could give you many, many examples of this, but the one I want to specifically address today is poverty of experience around the plight of immigrants and refugees.
 
We currently have at least five people who have been coming to our church regularly who are dealing with the immigration process in one way or another.
 
And, as we know, two of our new members specifically are refugees.
 
Most of us have significant “poverty of experience” when it comes to what immigrants and refugees deal with when moving to a new country.
 
And now, our church has a slightly better idea because we personally know people who are going through the process.
 
And, because we have heard at least part of their story and have had the opportunity to get to know them, we have learned a bit more about their experience and what is involved in the process.
 
And, we have grown to love them as part of our community.
 
But, I want to point out a significant element of “closing the gap” on our poverty of experience around these issues:
 
They found us. We did not seek them out.
 
They became a part of our community, and we got to know them and love them and learn about their experience because they found us.
 
But, going back to our questions again about the role of the church, why we need it, and what our responsibility is to it, I wonder what it would mean for us to step outside of our comfort zone and reach out to others in similar situations?
 
Who are the people in our community that we have a responsibility to (as part of Huntington Hills, Calgary, Alberta, or Canada) that we have not yet met?
 
Stick with me here for a minute, because it does come back to love.
 
Do we have a responsibility to anyone other than ourselves and those who find us?
 
When we ask who we might have a responsibility to that we have not yet met, I am talking about anyone in the surrounding community who has not yet walked through our doors.
 
And, I’m talking also about the next generation of people who aren’t yet born.
 
Can the love that Jesus commands extend to all those we have not yet met?
 
If so, how?
 
I know that it can sound overwhelming. And, we cannot possibly address every concern within our own community, let alone the entire city of Calgary or the entire province of Alberta.
 
But, as we think about what Jesus meant when he told us to love one another, we do have a responsibility to think outside the walls of our own church community.
 
And I know what many of you are thinking.
 
There are only so many of us, and we only have so much energy, and that energy seems to be waning.
 
All of that may be true. But Jesus didn’t say “love one another, except… when you’re tired and your energy has depleted.”
 
We do a wonderful job of welcoming the stranger who walks through our doors.
 
Jesus would approve of that, I think!
 
And yet, he might push us to stretch our notion of love beyond ourselves.
 
To look at the resources we have and the assets we hold and wonder together how we could use them to best serve people beyond the walls of our church.
 
Are there other ways we could help immigrants and refugees, for example?
 
Instead of merely welcoming the stranger when they walk through our doors, could we invite them to walk with us in community?
 
Could we accept Jesus’ pat on the back that we have done a great job welcoming the stranger, and also walk with him as he pushes us to take the next step?
 
And what might that look like?
 
As we close today’s message, I would ask us all to just ponder these questions. 
 
There are a lot of questions I’ve thrown out today.
 
And some of it is my own way of mulling these things over myself.
 
As a pastor, it’s my job to ask these questions and wonder if there is more we could be doing in our ministry and if so, what that might look like.
 
But it’s not just my job. It is our job. Jesus certainly didn’t expect only pastors to be thinking about these things.
 
Pastors come and go from church communities, but the community itself remains to serve and love one another.
 
What that service and love looks like evolves and changes over time.
 
But we must continue to ask these hard questions in order to bear witness to evolution and change, and in order to bear witness to the love we are consistently called to share with others.
 
Jesus invites us each and every day to love one another as he loved us.
 
His love extended well beyond the boundaries of his own people and his own community.
 
And, it extended far beyond the generation of people he met. His love extended through time and space to meet us here.
 
So, as we go from this place to love and serve one another, may we wonder together how we can love as Jesus loved us and extend that love beyond the boundaries of our church community.
 
May we continue to welcome and love the strangers who walk through our doors.
 
And, may we consider how we can extend that love to all of those we have not yet met, and what that might mean in our context.
 
Amen.
 
Let us pray:
 
God of welcome, God of the stranger. We come as strangers. We come as those who you welcome. We come as those called to welcome.
Christ, who reached across all lines, Messiah who looked the “other” in the eyes with love. Challenge us with your radical example of love. Stretch us to engage the way you engage. Humble us to receive and be.
 
Spirit who challenges, Spirit who connects, Urge us to compassion, Break down our resistance, Strengthen our resolve, Tear open our hearts, Mobilize our minds, Flow through our bodies, as Your vessels who will be conduits of welcome, compassion, justice and love. Amen.

​Young at Heart Message
​
It occurred to me as I was preparing for this week’s message that you all have not been blessed with a pastor who talks too much about her dogs.

I need to remedy that!

I know that Psalm 23 is very often associated with death.

People often request Psalm 23 be read at their bedside when they are close to death, and it is often requested for funerals.
 
And don’t get me wrong – I love using Psalm 23 in that capacity. It offers comfort and hope to people as they transition from this life to the next.
 
But, Psalm 23 is not just a Psalm for the dying. It is also very much a Psalm for the living.
 
And each time I hear this Psalm and think about the Lord as a Shepherd, I think about my dog Lacey.
 
Lacey is a Great Pyrenees.
 
Those of you who have seen Lacey recently know that her hair has been shaved. As she’s gotten older, this has become necessary for her.
 
But, in her prime, this is what she looked like:

​For those of you who don’t know, Pyrenees are livestock guardian dogs.
 
They are bred to watch flocks of sheep or goats, particularly in the mountains.
 
They watch, defend, protect, care for, and fiercely love their flock. Kind of like mothers!
 
Now, Lacey has never had a flock to guard, per se.
 
Unless, of course, you consider her household her “flock.”

​Or maybe this actual flock she encountered at camp a couple summers ago…

​One of the traits of a Pyrenees is that they can appear to be sleeping or resting, or even lazy.

​But they are ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice:

​Taking a break to care for your human…

​Lacey has taught me a lot about working hard and playing hard. She’s taught me about balance.
 
And, she’s taught me a lot about God.
 
I can relate to the imagery of the Lord as my shepherd because I have had the joy of sharing my life with a “shepherd.”
 
And now, you all have had a little glimpse into what being a shepherd means. Lacey doesn’t know it, but being a shepherd also means being a teacher.
 
The Message
 
Now that we have a “real-world” example of at least one type of shepherd, I want to look a bit more closely at Psalm 23.
 
You might be wondering what I could possibly say about this well-known passage.
 
It’s a good question, so let’s explore it a bit more.
 
The versions most of us are familiar with are either the King James version, or the New King James version.
 
The version we heard earlier was the New King James version. The King James version uses “thee” and “thou” but otherwise sounds mostly the same.
 
But, what happens if we read a different version?
 
The version I’d like us to hear now is from a version of the Bible called The Message.
 
If you have never read this version before, it is a very accessible, easy-to-understand version of the Bible.
 
It does not attempt to translate word-for-word like many versions do.
 
Instead, it translates based on concepts and the idea each passage is trying to convey.
 
So, let’s read The Message version. I’ll read it slowly and intentionally, and as I do, I want you to ponder the ways in which this version might resonate for you.
 
Particularly in your life today – not necessarily on your death bed. 
 
God, my shepherd!
    I don’t need a thing.
You have bedded me down in lush meadows,
    you find me quiet pools to drink from.
True to your word,
    you let me catch my breath
    and send me in the right direction.
 
Even when the way goes through
    Death Valley,
I’m not afraid
    when you walk at my side.
Your trusty shepherd’s crook
    makes me feel secure.
 
You serve me a six-course dinner
    right in front of my enemies.
You revive my drooping head;
    my cup brims with blessing.
 
Your beauty and love chase after me
    every day of my life.
I’m back home in the house of God
    for the rest of my life.
 
Does this version feel different to you?
 
God, my shepherd! I don’t need a thing.
 
Right away, I bring to my mind’s eye the image of a shepherd providing for the flock’s every need.
 
Unlike the line “I shall not want,” which sounds a bit more like I am trying to convince myself that God has provided for me, this version confidently has me realizing that my needs are met already, here and now, by God.
 
You have bedded me down in lush meadows, you find me quiet pools to drink from. You let me catch my breath and send me in the right direction.
 
Again, this version puts God right by my side. When I stray, God gently guides me back. When I need to rest or revive my body or soul, God provides for that, too.
 
Even when the way goes through Death Valley, I’m not afraid when you walk at my side.
 
This line traditionally is why so many people like this Psalm read at their deathbed or at their funeral. The NKJV version reads, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.”
 
It wouldn’t have to be read as though one is dying, but it is often understood that way.
 
However, The Message version reads:
 
Even when the way goes through Death Valley, I’m not afraid when you walk at my side. Your trusty shepherd’s crook makes me feel secure.
 
This imagery doesn’t invite us to think that “Death Valley” means the end. A valley might be a low point, but inevitably on either side of a valley, we can go back up again.
 
And, if we imagine being in that valley with God as our shepherd at our side, this invites images of hope for those of us who are very much still alive.
 
The last few lines of this version read:
 
You serve me a six-course dinner right in front of my enemies. You revive my drooping head, and my cups brims with blessing.
 
Your beauty and love chase after me every day of my life. I’m back home in the house of God for the rest of my life.
 
This doesn’t sound like death’s doorway. This sounds like coming home.
 
This version would have God right with us, every single moment of every single day – within us, around us, through us, above and below us – protecting us, comforting us, guiding us, helping us to see the beauty all around us, and so, so much more.
 
It provides an incredible hope, even as we go through challenges, grief, pain, or suffering of any kind.
 
As we conclude this discussion on Psalm 23, I want to share with you a poem.
 
I’m sharing this poem because of the sense of “coming home” that Psalm 23 can provide – regardless of which version we hear or read.
 
The poem I want to share is called “Please Come Home” by Jane Hooper.
 
I invite you to close your eyes or soften your gaze and allow your body and mind to rest in the words as you hear them.
 
May you hear whatever it is you need to hear today in this poem:
 
Please come home. Please come home.
Find the place where your feet know where to walk
And follow your own trail home.
 
Please come home. Please come home into your own body,
Your own vessel, your own earth.
Please come home into each and every cell,
And fully into the space that surrounds you.
 
Please come home. Please come home to trusting yourself,
And your instincts and your ways and your knowings,
And even the particular quirks of your personality.
 
Please come home. Please come home and once you are firmly there,
Please stay home awhile and come to a deep rest within.
Please treasure your home. Please love and embrace your home.
Please get a deep, deep sense of what it’s like to be truly home.
 
Please come home. Please come home
For you belong here now. You belong among us.
Please inhabit your place fully so we can learn from you,
From your voice and your ways and your presence.
 
Please come home. Please come home.
And when you feel yourself home, please welcome us too,
For we too forget that we belong and are welcome,
And that we are called to express fully who we are.
 
Please come home. Please come home.
You and you and you and me.
 
Please come home. Please come home.
 
Amen.
 
Let us pray:
 
God of wonder and beauty, thank you for welcoming us home. Thank you for loving us just as we are. Thank you for being our shepherd - for protecting us, guiding us, offering us grace and compassion, and fiercely loving us such that we can take your love and share it with the world. We are grateful for every walk through the valley, and every climb toward the sun. May your fierce love and compassion surround us everywhere we go. Amen.

The Message

This week’s scripture readings follow on the heels of last week’s scripture, in which Peter responds to the accusations of the jury he had to answer to by saying, “We must obey God rather than human beings!”

Last week, I talked about the challenges to obeying God in a world where multiple power forces converge to try to stifle the teachings of Jesus.
​
And of course, those challenges existed in the time of the disciples, and they still exist now.
 
I mentioned that the challenge is that many humans are motivated by power, authority, money, and control. And, inevitably, the humans who end up in leadership roles are not usually an exception to this.
 
I want to remind us all of the example I gave last week for why obeying God is so difficult before we move into talking about this week’s scriptures.
 
Last week, I said the following:
 
I don’t like green peppers. I would be perfectly happy to see legislation outlawing green peppers.
 
If I were a single-issue voter, and there was a candidate who was prepared to outlaw green peppers, I would vote for that candidate no matter what.
 
But, other people like green peppers. They add flavour to foods, they are healthy, and they are inexpensive.
 
If green peppers were outlawed, it would be good for me personally, but it wouldn’t necessarily be good for everyone else.
 
We talked last week about how this example is silly, of course, but it is how many people think about much bigger issues.
 
Peter, for example, was a devoted follower of Jesus, and if we could ask him, I think he would probably say that he was doing his best to “obey God.”
 
But, it is no secret that Peter struggled to trust Jesus and obey him completely.
 
Peter had a lot of questions and doubts. And I appreciate that about Peter because he helps many people to feel better about the fact that they have a lot of questions, too.
 
Peter also, as we just heard through Lent and Easter, denied Jesus three times. So, despite his very best efforts to obey and trust Jesus, he still failed when it mattered most.
 
Today, we see Jesus offer Peter grace despite his failures. And I appreciate that, too, because Peter receives from Jesus the grace that we all need from time to time.
 
Perhaps the more interesting passage from today’s readings is the passage about Saul.
 
Saul, as we know, becomes the incredibly devoted Paul who wrote many letters to various communities which have been recorded in the Bible.
 
But in today’s passage from Acts, we see a totally different Paul. We see him before he becomes Paul.
 
Before his encounter with the risen Jesus, Saul is devoted to fairly aggressively threatening and persecuting Jesus’s disciples.
 
The passage uses the phrase “breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples.”
 
That’s not such a great look, admittedly.
 
Saul believes so strongly in his cause that he was blinded by rage.
 
Interestingly, what he is really fighting for is his own spiritual cause. He’s fighting to preserve the Jewish laws and customs, and he’s fighting against the idea that Jesus was the Messiah.
 
If we go back to my green pepper statement for the sake of discussion, it would be like me going out publicly and trying to ban green peppers.
 
If I believed that I was doing God’s work by trying to get green peppers banned, and there were other people out there trying to make green peppers required with every meal because God told them so, we’d be in a similar situation to Saul.
 
So, how do I know if I’m right, of they are right?
 
Unfortunately, for many people, including Saul, it might take a really big “sign” to change the mind of someone who believes so passionately about something.
 
Saul got a visit from the resurrected Jesus.
 
That’s a pretty big sign.
 
But most of the rest of us don’t get those kinds of signs.
 
For me, I might need to personally know someone who can explain to me how banning green peppers might affect them personally.
 
Maybe my sister would need to tell me that green peppers are the only peppers she can eat.
 
Banning them would mean that she wouldn’t get to enjoy the flavour that peppers can add to her food because she can only eat green peppers.
 
The point here is this: Peter and Saul both demonstrate for us this notion that obeying God can be difficult and complex.
 
And, sometimes, we believe so strongly that we are right about something that it takes a very big “sign” to help us realize we may not be right, or that we may need to evolve our thinking.
 
Or, at the very least, to help us realize that other people might have different opinions and very good reasons for feeling differently than we do.
 
Jesus didn’t reprimand Saul. Jesus offered him an olive branch and let Saul make his own choice.
 
Saul could have chosen to continue his persecution. He could have chosen not to believe his eyes and his ears.
 
Many people make that choice because it is easier than confronting their possible biases.
 
But, Saul chose to obey. Saul chose to trust. And, he ended up changing his mind. Or, more accurately, he ended up evolving his thinking.
 
Instead of feeling ashamed for defending what he thought was what God wanted, Saul opened his mind and heart to another possibility.
 
He welcomed the change, and recognized that he didn’t know what he didn’t know. He received the proof he needed that prompted him to walk a different path.
 
It is the case for us, too, that God confronts us in ways that might make us uncomfortable initially.
 
I am sure that Saul was thinking “oh, crud. I was wrong.” He was probably trying to figure out every way possible to ignore this new information – this proof.
 
I am sure he was uncomfortable. But he opened himself up to the possibility that he was wrong.
 
And we must sometimes do the same.
 
I will admit… I might be wrong about banning green peppers. It might not be as black and white, or as “all or nothing” as I thought it should be.
 
So, may we all consider opening ourselves to new possibilities and ways of thinking.
 
We all have our “green pepper” issues. And we all struggle sometimes to understand the perspective of other people.
 
May we consider opening our eyes to the ways in which God might speak to us – perhaps through a big “sign,” but more likely through our relationships with other people and through listening to the lived experiences of others.
 
May we listen for God, wonder with God, and invite God to open our hearts to a better understanding of the world and of those around us who are different than we are.
 
May we work to trust God and the ways that God works in our own lives. Amen.
 
Let us pray: Gracious God, we do not always know if we are obeying and trusting in you, or in our own wants and desires. Forgive us when we stray from your path, and help lovingly guide us back when we wander.
 
Help us to feel your presence in our lives and to discern what it is you want from us in the ways we will understand. This may look different for each one of us, but we pray that with your guidance, we will be able to walk the path you wish us to walk. In your loving name we pray. Amen.

Young at Heart Message

Imagine with me for a moment…

Imagine I am young – say 10 years old.

At 10, I’m curious about the world, and I explore that world with all my senses. I try new things, and I learn about the world by observing or experiencing the consequences of my actions.
​
Now, imagine I live on a farm with a beautiful chicken coop. I’ve been around this chicken coop my whole life, so it’s not new to me.
 
But, what IS new to me is my discovery of this lighter.
 
Fire is fascinating, and I just discovered that I can create fire using this lighter. I’d like to play with it a little bit and see what happens when I ignite different things.
 
But, I also know that if I get caught playing with it, I’ll get into trouble.
 
So, I decide to play with it in the chicken coop where no one will see me.
 
I pick up a piece of straw in the chicken coop and I put the lighter to it to see what happens.
 
I figure there’s no real danger of doing this – after all, it’s just one piece of straw.
 
But, when I put the flame to the end of the straw, I don’t anticipate how quickly the flame will burn through that one small piece of straw.
 
It crawls quickly toward my fingers, and I get worried and drop the piece of straw.
 
But, it’s still ignited, and now it’s also lit the piece of straw next to it.
 
I’m not sure what to do, but I know I should probably cover it with something to put the fire out.
 
The only thing around is more straw, so I grab a handful and put it over the burning straw.
 
Whew! All I see now is smoke, so I breathe a sigh of relief that the fire is out.
 
I watch for a moment, but I notice the smoke isn’t stopping, and then I notice a small flame.
 
OK, I must not have snuffed it out with enough straw. So I put a huge pile of straw over the small flame.
 
The fire seems to be snuffed out completely now – I don’t see anymore smoke or flames. I watch it for a minute just to make sure.
 
All seems OK, so I breathe a sigh of relief, grab my lighter, and head back inside before anyone finds me.
 
About 10 minutes later, I hear my parents yelling that the chicken coop is on fire!
 
The adults in the room know that trying to snuff out a fire using flammable materials isn’t going to get us very far.
 
But, a child may not know that – what seems obvious to us isn’t always obvious to them.
 
Burying a fire with straw isn’t going to be effective in putting out the fire. Burying it will only cause it to spread further.
 
The Message
 
And this is where we find Peter and the Apostles today.
 
Multiple forces have been trying to bury Jesus and anyone associated with him.
 
But, the flame had already been lit, and trying to bury him was only causing more and more people to catch fire (metaphorically).
 
When I read this passage, I had to research what the Sanhedrin was.
 
According to my Google search, it can be defined in the following way:
 
The Sanhedrin was a Jewish legislative and judicial assembly in ancient Israel, functioning at both local and central levels. It was a council of elders or a senate, with the Great Sanhedrin in Jerusalem holding the highest authority. The term "Sanhedrin" itself means "council" or "sitting together" in Greek.
 
This trial that the apostles are dealing with comes on the heels of their miraculous escape from prison.
 
You might be wondering why Peter and the apostles were in prison in the first place.
 
They got into trouble because of their healing miracles and their insistence that Jesus was the only name by which humankind could be saved.
 
However, if you were a Roman in the time of the apostles, you knew that Augustus Caesar was the sole saviour of the world.
 
Therefore, this new group of people going around saying that Jesus was actually the sole saviour of the world was seen as a threat to the Roman Empire.
 
From their perspective, Jesus was an imposter whose name should not be associated with the titles the emperor had justly earned.
 
However, as we know, there is a huge difference between the actions of Jesus and the actions of the emperor.
 
The Roman emperor would have exercised absolute power in order to maintain his status.
 
Jesus, however, sacrificed his power and status in the process of bringing salvation to everyone.
 
The Roman emperor abused power and used violence to claim the status of saviour.
 
Jesus, on the other hand, was crucified, which was an act of solidarity with the marginalized. This is what ultimately made Jesus saviour.
 
People had been encouraged, or perhaps even forced, to believe that the Roman emperor was their saviour, despite the fact that they were coerced into believing it.
 
So when Jesus came along and contradicted the emperor, he started a fire among people who were thirsty for change.
 
Thirsty people are like dry straw – once they catch fire, that fire spreads quickly and it is difficult to bury or snuff out.
 
By the time we see the apostles at this trial, the flames have spread to a point where they are essentially out of control.
 
There are multiple powers now trying to suppress the Jesus movement.
 
While on trial, Peter and the other apostles are reminded that they were explicitly told not to teach in Jesus’ name.
 
Peter responds by saying “We must obey God rather than human beings!”
 
This line is heavy in a world where there are multiple power forces converging to try to stifle the teachings of Jesus.
 
And, it is a heavy line in every era after this, from the time of the apostles to now.
 
Why? Well, because power, money, authority, and control are motivating factors for many humans, including, often, those elected or appointed to lead.
 
Obeying God instead of obeying human beings can be quite difficult in any world where human beings lead other human beings, and in any world where those same human beings – the leaders and the led – are motivated by their own individualistic concerns.
 
Leaders are often motivated not by doing the best for the most people, but by doing the best for themselves, including whatever will allow them to stay in control.
 
And, the general population tends to be motivated by whatever is in their own best interest.
 
So, for example, I don’t like green peppers. I would be perfectly happy to see legislation outlawing green peppers.
 
If I were a single-issue voter, and there was a candidate who was prepared to outlaw green peppers, I would vote for that candidate no matter what.
 
But, other people like green peppers. They add flavour to foods, they are healthy, and they are inexpensive.
 
If green peppers were outlawed, it would be good for me personally, but it wouldn’t necessarily be good for everyone else.
 
Now of course, that’s a silly example. But if we translate that to larger issues, we can see how people can very quickly lose sight of the big picture because all they can see is how they personally might be impacted.
 
So, when Peter says “We must obey God rather than human beings,” we can quickly see how this might actually be much easier said than done.
 
When power structures and individual motivations are at play in our lives, we can easily lose sight of what God might want because of our personal motivations.
 
God may want people to have access to green peppers, but because I personally don’t like them, I can easily lose sight of what God might want in lieu of my own desires.
 
Likewise, it can be difficult for me to see how God might want something for other people that I don’t want for myself.
 
We can begin to see how obeying God can easily become quite difficult and complicated, especially when we are talking about a community or society where everyone has different perspectives and opinions.
 
And, often, people have different opinions while both maintaining that their opinion is what God wants!
 
So, how do we reconcile these things?
 
Well, it’s not easy, but Peter does give us the “tip of the iceberg” answer. He points us to Jesus and his example, and the movement of the Holy Spirit among those who obey God.
 
I say this is just the “tip of the iceberg” because we can see how complicated it truly is.
 
But, we can start by looking just at our own lives, and we can lean on God to guide us in the small things so that we can get better at letting God lead for the bigger things.
 
If we are able to do this consistently in our own lives, it will become easier to see when others may be leading us astray (or when others may be working from their own selfish motivations rather than wondering with God what the answer might be).
 
If we are able to learn from the work Jesus did while he was on earth and wonder with God how Jesus’ example might be speaking to us in our own lives, we may begin to learn how to notice God’s movement in more of our day-to-day life.
 
As my Spiritual Director likes to remind me: wisdom is not knowing more; wisdom is knowing with more of yourself.
 
May we allow the flame of Jesus’ life and teachings to ignite in us a spirit of wonder and joy.
 
May we lean into knowing God with more of ourselves, and may we have the wisdom to know when we might be straying from God’s path.
 
Amen.
 
Loving God, we like to think that life is simple, and that we have all the answers to complicated questions and differences of opinion. Help us to listen for Your guiding voice. Help us to use Jesus as an example in our own lives when we aren’t sure what the right answer might be to the difficult questions. Walk with us as we journey together and continue to navigate a complicated world, reminding us over and over again that we are called to love and care for others without judgement. Amen.

Our Lenten Sermon Series is a series on women surrounding Jesus leading up to his death and resurrection. We are using materials from Reverend Kathryn Schreiber and her "in the big love living liturgies." Because this material is copyrighted, it will not be available on our website. Please consider joining us for worship during Lent this year, or speak with Pastor Jamie to get more information on this sermon series.

Kathryn's website is: www.inthebiglove.com. Many thanks to her for making her sermon series available to other pastors. She did a wonderful job compiling information and resources.