​The Message
 
How many people here enjoy doing puzzles?
 
I love doing puzzles! In fact, I brought one of my puzzles today as a visual aid.
 
Can anyone tell me which piece of this puzzle is the most important piece?
 
You really can’t tell me which piece is the most important.
 
But, just because we can’t say which specific piece is the most important doesn’t mean that none of them are important!
 
All of the pieces of this puzzle are important. Do you know how I know that?
 
Because when I put this puzzle together and got to the very end, I realized it’s missing a piece.
 
Right smack dab in the middle of the puzzle, a piece is missing.
 
That missing piece sure is important! It might even have become the most important piece simply by not being there.
 
The individual pieces of a puzzle seemingly aren’t all that important on their own until one goes missing. Then we realize just how important each and every piece is if we want a whole and complete puzzle!
 
Sometimes I think we see ourselves as puzzle pieces within our family, our community, or our church.
 
Sometimes we believe we aren’t all that important in the grand scheme of things.
 
Or, we believe that we have to do more, say more, be more, or be better in order to matter to others or to God.
 
I talked with someone once about baptism, and they said they just weren’t sure because they didn’t feel they were worthy. They didn’t go to church enough, they didn’t feel they followed the Bible well enough, and they didn’t read scripture or pray enough.
 
I’m sad to say that church often teaches people to believe that because they aren’t good enough Christians, they are unworthy of God’s grace.
 
Often, people think they must be perfect before they can enter God’s kingdom or receive God’s grace and love.
 
People think they must be the perfect puzzle piece – the best piece in the box, shining before God and perfectly molded to fit into whatever box the church has taught them they must fit into.
 
But we hear Paul saying something different in his letter to the Corinthians.
 
How many of the people of Corinth do you think were feeling unworthy to be part of the Christian community?
 
I’m guessing quite a few if Paul had to tell them these things.
 
The passage right before today’s was the one we heard last week about spiritual gifts.
 
Paul is working hard to convince the people of Corinth that they matter! Not only do they matter to God, but they matter to each other.
 
Paul uses the analogy of the human body to illustrate his point.
 
He says, “The body of Christ has many different parts, just as any other body does.”
 
He goes on to say that no matter our background, no matter our current position in life, we are each baptized by the Spirit and have been made a part of the Body of Christ.
 
Just like our bodies don’t have just one part, neither does the church body have just one part.
 
One might argue that unlike a puzzle, in which all pieces are equally important, our bodies do have some parts that are more important than others.
 
However, tell that to someone who is missing one of those “insignificant” parts!
 
The parts of our bodies all work together to help us function.
 
Certainly, we can get by without some parts of our bodies.
 
However, try telling someone who had major organ issues that certain parts aren’t important!
 
My dad had heart issues. That particular body part is pretty darn important. But, when they treated the issues he had with his heart, that process destroyed his kidneys.
 
Fixing the kidneys required impacting his already weakened heart.
 
Not to mention the toll his medications took on his GI tract, his liver, and his muscles!
 
Paul’s point, as he says, is that “God put our bodies together in such a way that even the parts that seem the least important are valuable. He did this to make all parts of the body work together smoothly, with each part caring about the others. If one part of our body hurts, we hurt all over. If one part of our body is honored, the whole body will be happy.”
 
Likewise, we are all part of the body of Christ.
 
Each one of us, with our own unique gifts and talents, with our own fears and insecurities, are part of Christ’s body.
 
Each one of us is worthy to be a part of Christ’s body, and that is important for us to remember.
 
We don’t just believe in Christ, we are a part of Christ! And in this way, it is an honor to be part of Christ’s body.
 
Jesus was not raised from the dead as an individual, Jesus was raised from the dead in a community.
 
And, to this day, we have the privilege of being a part of that community!
 
And in that unity with Christ, we are not called to merely love one another. We are all a part of each other.
 
Paul is suggesting something much bigger than ourselves.
 
Paul is suggesting that we are all connected; we all have something to offer; and we all need each other.
 
We need each other’s individual gifts, all of us different and all of us necessary, like all the different organs in a body, or parts of a living cell.
 
All the parts are distinct, but only as part of the whole. So when you love your neighbor as yourself you don’t just love them as much as you love yourself, you love them as part of yourself, as yourself!
 
This is a radical suggestion that Paul is making, because it sure can be difficult to love some people as much as we try to love ourselves, let alone to love them as part of ourselves!
 
Think about someone you know of who you find incredibly difficult to be around, or who holds such vastly different views from you that you just cannot fathom loving them.
 
Now, imagine loving that person as a part of yourself.
 
That is not easy!
 
But, in some ways, it might be easier to think about loving the parts of ourselves that we don’t always like. Perhaps the person that came to mind has some qualities that you see in yourself that you don’t always like.
 
If we think about it in this way, we could imagine working to love those parts of ourselves that we don’t always like, and then working to try to love other people as though they are also a part of us.
 
It makes me think about Paul’s example of the eyes saying they don’t need the hands, or the head saying it doesn’t need the feet.
 
Maybe sometimes our heads think we don’t really need our feet.
 
But at the end of the day, it would be much harder for our heads to navigate the world without our feet, and it would be difficult for our eyes to navigate the world without our hands.
 
Our eyes cannot pick things up and hold them. Our eyes cannot know how something feels merely by looking at it.
 
Our eyes cannot hug a loved one, or hold our partner’s hand, or play an instrument, or determine if something is hot or cold.
 
Likewise, we may think we don’t need certain people in our lives, and perhaps we don’t need to be close to them. But those people we don’t fully understand or don’t get along with are valuable to the world, too.
 
They are also a valuable part of the body of Christ. Without them, the body is not whole.
 
So, as Paul encouraged the people of Corinth to love one another and think of each other as members of the same body, let us leave here with a better understanding of what it means to be part of the body of Christ.
 
Let us remember that we are worthy of God’s love and we are a welcome addition to the body of Christ, and so are our neighbors, our friends, our families, and even our “enemies.”
 
May we remember that we are called not just to love one another as we love ourselves, but to love others as a part of ourselves.
 
May we remember that we all help to bring wholeness to the body of Christ. We are connected and we need each other just as we need God.
 
This may not always be an easy task, but it is a necessary task as we imagine a world in which all people are worthy to sit at the table with Christ as part of his body. Amen.
 
Spirit of the living God, we praise and adore you for empowering us to claim membership of the body of Christ, a gift received through the fullness of your grace. Remind us that we are all members of the one body and if one member suffers, we all suffer. May we, as the body of Christ in this place, be the best evidence of your love by declaring and witnessing to this as the year of the Lord’s favour for all people. We give thanks that all of us are Christ’s body, and rejoice in each one being a part of it. Accept our adoration and praise for these great gifts. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

​Young at Heart Message
 
I know this isn’t great timing, but I have to be honest with you, I’m starving. I really need a snack.
 
Do you all mind if I have a quick snack?
 
It’ll only take a minute - I promise - and then we can get back to our regularly scheduled worship service.
 
I have some bread here in case of a hunger emergency, but I don’t have much else to make a sandwich.
 
Is there any chance any of you have some peanut butter?
 
How about jam? Anyone have jam?
 
OK, now I need a knife, and probably a plate too.
 
And, this is embarrassing, but can anyone tell me how to make a peanut butter sandwich?
 
*We work together to make a peanut butter sandwich*
 
Wow, thank you all so much for working together to help make sure my stomach doesn’t rumble too much during worship!
 
It was pretty lucky that some of you thought you might need a snack during worship today too and brought stuff to make a peanut butter sandwich.
 
But, like me, none of you had everything you needed to make a sandwich.
 
Each of us had just one important part of the sandwich-making process.
 
But, by working together and combining the items we brought, we were able to create a sandwich that we could all benefit from (if we cut it into small enough pieces).
 
And that is how you do a sermon on Spiritual Gifts! We all have our own gifts, we should all use those gifts to help each other, and we should respect and honour the gifts of others. Amen!
 
The Message
 
OK, that’s not really the end of the sermon.
 
But, that is often how sermons on Spiritual Gifts go, isn’t it?
 
Some variation of “we all have gifts and we should use them to work together and help others.”
 
Except, as with most things, it isn’t always that simple.
 
When I was in grade 7, I was asked to do an oral report in Social Studies class as a partner project with my cousin.
 
I don’t remember preparing for that report at all, but I do remember giving the report. The only thing I remember is that we took turns giggling throughout the entire thing.
 
I don’t think we even managed to present anything coherent to the class. You would not have believed then that I would be public speaking for a living today!
 
I think that was probably when I started to dislike having to do group projects in school.
 
In theory, I understand the benefit of group projects. But in reality, it always seems that no matter what, a few people tend to do all of the work on a group project, and then everyone gets the same grade, regardless of how much work each person put into the project.
 
Now, I’ve had to do a few group presentations more recently as part of my seminary experience, and I will say that it has gone slightly better.
 
But in general, group projects can be difficult.
 
We like to think we can each use our own gifts and talents to benefit the group, but often we end up doing something we aren’t well-suited for, or something we don’t really want to do.
 
Sometimes, no one else wants to do that piece. Other times, no one else has the skill set, and you don’t either, but you come closer than some of the other people.
 
I remember my very first year at dog sports camp in Montana, we had a group relay event at the very end of camp.
 
It was a competition which involved four different activities that the dogs had to do: a short agility course, lure coursing, nose work, and carrying an egg on a spoon without breaking it as you walked your dog on leash.
 
A different person had to do each of the activities so that each member of the group did one thing with their dog.
 
My dog was a Bernese Mountain Dog. He wasn’t suited for agility, nose work, or lure coursing. In fact, he wouldn’t be able to do any of those things.
 
The only thing he could do was walk politely on leash so I could carry an egg on a spoon without breaking it.
 
Did I really want to do that activity? No way! I would have preferred one of the other, more exciting, activities. But, my dog’s skill set only allowed him to do the boring egg-carrying activity.
 
Group “projects” can be challenging, and while we each hope we can divide the work evenly and each person can use their individual gifts and talents, it doesn’t always work out that way in practice.
 
Take ministry, for example. It happens in ministry, too, that the same people tend to do most of the work, or that people end up doing work they aren’t really suited for because no one else will.
 
And, we shouldn’t be surprised by this. It happens in every group when people come together to try to meet a common goal.
 
Even Jesus acknowledged that the labor to laborer ratio is unbalanced in Matthew 9:37, when he said “the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few.”
 
Churches ultimately are an investment in people, for better or for worse.
 
We support the work we believe we have been called to do. But, we cannot be expected to do that work alone, and we cannot bear the burden of doing the work of ministry on our own.
 
We need one another. That is why Paul reminds us so emphatically in his first letter to the Corinthians that every gift given by the Spirit was given for the common good.
 
Every gift was given for the benefit of the entire community of which we are a part.
 
As bearers of these gifts of the Spirit, we are called to use them to benefit our own church community, and the world around us.
 
But, very often in churches, the same people end up doing all the work because they believe that if they don’t do it, no one else will.
 
So, even if they aren’t enjoying the work, or if they have started to burn out on the work, they continue to do it because of this belief that it is their burden to bear and no one else’s.
 
But, it is also true that this is often not the case at all. Sometimes, people don’t step up to do certain work because someone else is already responsible for it.
 
So instead of offering to help, they figure they aren’t needed because others are already doing the work.
 
This is how the same people tend to end up doing the bulk of the work, and how misunderstandings can happen.
 
It is also possible that those who have been doing the work a long time have a hard time passing the baton to someone else.
 
These are the dynamics that happen in every church community or organization that invest in people.
 
There are always ways we can use our own spiritual gifts and remain involved in ministries even as we encourage and uplift others and bring them alongside us to do the good work that we do.
 
It doesn’t have to be an either/or. It can be a both/and scenario.
 
We can simultaneously do the work we have been doing for a very long time while also encouraging others to join us in that work, inviting them to use their own gifts and bring along new ideas to support the work we already do.
 
Sometimes, as difficult as it might be, doing group work may mean stepping aside and allowing others to use their own spiritual gifts to benefit the community as well.
 
We are not called to do this work alone. If we can lift each other up, encourage, and support one another, we may just see that more people start getting involved, and it feels less like the same people are always doing all the work.
 
Uplifting one another and celebrating each other’s gifts is what we are called to do with one another.
 
So let us leave here today ready to do the work we are called to do, but also ready to encourage the gifts of others.
 
When we become a member of a church community, we automatically become part of one big group project.
 
The only way we remain successful in ministry is if we celebrate the gifts we were given and the gifts others were given, and use all of them to make the most delicious (metaphorical) peanut butter sandwich around. Amen.
 
Generous God, we thank you for the gifts of the Spirit which you have bestowed upon each of us. We pray that you would guide us and teach us to use the gifts you have entrusted us with, and we pray that you would help us wisely encourage others to use their gifts. Together, we pray that you would help us work to make your world a better place. In your Holy name, we pray. Amen.

​Young at Heart Message
 
Who remembers learning how to ride a bicycle?
 
I remember my journey toward learning to ride a bicycle like it was yesterday because it was an incredibly important experience for me.
 
I wanted to learn how to ride a bike so badly because I idolized my Dad, and he knew how to ride a bike.
 
He promised that once I learned to ride, we could ride together, and we could ride around town for longer rides.
 
I was also secretly motivated to learn to ride because I desperately wanted to be able to ride my bike to school by myself.
 
I was young – probably 4 years old – when I started begging my Dad to teach me. I wanted so badly to “grow up” and ride a “big girl bike.”
 
As most kids do, I started learning to ride with training wheels.
 
The training wheels gave a sense of security and safety – if I started to tip a little to one side or the other, they would catch me and keep me from falling.
 
However, because I was in such a hurry to ride a “big girl bike,” I didn’t want to use the training wheels for very long before I begged to have them taken off.
 
For a few rides, my Dad would hold onto the seat of the bike to keep me from falling over until I got up enough speed to ride.
 
But I wasn’t quite steady enough on the bike, so I fell quite a few times.
 
My Dad couldn’t be there all the time with me, so when I would play outside, I would grab my bike and practice in the grass.
 
This was pretty smart, if I do say so myself, because when I inevitably fell, it didn’t hurt.
 
You’ll be happy to know that by the time I was about 5, I was riding a bike without any assistance.
 
The only problem I ever had after that was when my shoelaces would get caught up in the pedals, and I couldn’t pedal backward because at that time, pedaling backwards hit the breaks.
 
But I fixed that problem by making sure I fell onto the grassy curb when it happened.
 
(I also could have tucked my laces in my shoes, but we won’t mention that!)
 
Much like learning to ride a bike, there are times in life when we might face challenges or uncertainty that require a little extra support.
 
In those times, God is there for and with us, supporting us, guiding us, and helping us along.
 
Much like the training wheels, or my Dad holding onto the seat of my bike, or even the softer grass to land on, God is right there with us.
 
God can’t prevent us from falling, but God can be with us as we do.
 
Isaiah 43 has so many useful nuggets of wisdom:
 
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name; you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.
 
What if instead, we imagined Isaiah to say something like this:
 
“Do not fear! I have called you by name and you are mine.
When you desperately want to learn to ride a bike, I will be with you. And when you outgrow your training wheels, falling shall not overwhelm you; when you do fall, you shall not be hurt, and if you are, I will guide you to the soft grass so you can have a safe landing. Do not fear, for I am with you.”
 
God isn’t saying that life won’t throw us challenges! But, when we are in the midst of those challenges, God asks us not to be afraid and to trust that God is with us through it all.
 
God is in the metaphorical training wheels of life, and God is there when we get brave enough to remove those training wheels and try things on our own.
 
God is there when we inevitably fall, and God is there when we get back up and try again!
 
The Message
 
Now, I love the passage we read from Isaiah today. It might be one of my favorite passages in the entire Bible.
 
I love the idea of God calling me by name and reminding that I belong to God.
 
I love that this passage reminds me that through all of the challenges of life, God is right there with me. I also love that God so explicitly says that I am loved.
 
I love the Isaiah passage, and I would love to preach only on that scripture today.
 
But we hear an important passage from the Gospel of Luke today, too, and I think it would be helpful to talk about how these two scriptures work together.
 
In the Gospel of Luke, we heard two connected but distinct stories.
 
First, we heard about John the Baptizer, baptizing people who wonder if he is the Messiah.
 
And John, instead of relishing in his potential 15-minutes of fame, humbly tells people that while he is baptizing them, someone more powerful that he is coming – someone who is so powerful that he is not even worthy to undo the straps of his sandals.
 
John doesn’t allow himself to be overwhelmed by the people who seem to be idolizing him.
 
Instead, he makes way for Jesus – the one he believes is the true Messiah.
 
Secondly, we read that John baptizes the people, but he also baptizes Jesus.
 
This is a momentous occasion in itself, but then the heavens are opened and the Holy Spirit descends on Jesus like a dove.
 
Everyone hears a voice from heaven that says “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
 
Talk about the excitement of God calling you by name!
 
I feel warm and fuzzy inside when I read Isaiah, but I can only imagine how Jesus would feel when this voice from heaven calls him by name, declaring him God’s Son!
 
Jesus of course is humble, but he is also fully human. It had to have felt good to have such a strong declaration made in front of so many people.
 
But it also validated John’s claims that Jesus was the Messiah, and of course it was one of many more miracles that helped people understand who Jesus was.
 
The wonderful thing about reading the Isaiah passage and the Luke passage together is that it gives even more power to the Isaiah passage because Jesus demonstrates for us what it means for God to call us by name.
 
We might not each get a voice from heaven declaring us God’s offspring, but we do each belong to God, and that is a wonderful gift.
 
Throughout the Gospels we see examples of God calling Jesus by name and using Jesus to do good in the world.
 
But Isaiah tells us that we are also called by name.
 
We lead by example, and we too belong to God.
 
We are each created with our own unique gifts which God calls us to use to make this world a better place.
 
It can be scary to think about using our gifts and talents in new or different ways.
 
But, much like learning to ride a bike, God is right there with us.
 
In our training wheels, in another person holding us steady as we get up the courage to do it on our own, and in a soft place to land when we fall, God is there.
 
We belong to God, and that is a wonderful and beautiful thing.
 
When we pass through the waters, God will be with us, and through the rivers, we shall not be overwhelmed. When we walk through fire, the flame shall not consume us.
 
We are loved. We are cared for. We are surrounded by God’s embrace.
 
We are called by name, and we belong to God.
 
Let that Good News follow us wherever we go. Amen.
 
Let us pray:
 
God of safety and security, thank you for being our training wheels, our support, and our soft place to land. Even in the busyness of life, through the challenges and storms, you ride with us, placing a hand on us to steady us, and carrying us when life becomes too much for us to bear on our own. Belonging to You is a blessing, and we are overwhelmed with gratitude for your love. In your Holy name we pray. Amen.

​Young at Heart Message
 
I want to start today’s message by showing you some drawings.
 
These drawings were originally commissioned by Armand Gervais, a French toy manufacturer in Lyon, for the 1900 World Exhibition in Paris.
 
They were intended to imagine what the future would look like in the year 2000, 100 years after the World Exhibition.
 
The first 50 of these “paper cards” were drawn by Jean-Marc Côté, and they were designed to be enclosed in cigarette boxes.
 
However, Armand Gervais began producing them in 1899 but died during production, so they sat in the closed-down toy factory for nearly 100 years.
 
So, the cards never saw the light of day until 1986, only 14 years from the year 2000.
 
Let’s look at a few of these cards to see what people in the year 1900 thought the future might look like.

It’s an interesting exploration, and I wonder how we might depict the year 2125 if we were asked to draw what the world will be like then?
 
Of course, the people in 1900 could only imagine a world based on what they knew about their current world.
 
And, we could imagine some things based on our current world, but technology changes so quickly now that it’s difficult to predict.
 
The world is constantly changing, and we are constantly changing, too.
 
We can’t even fully predict how tomorrow will go for us.
 
We can make plans, and we can assume things will go to plan, but until reality actually occurs, it’s impossible to know for sure what tomorrow will bring.
 
The Message
 
And this is where we encounter the Magi in our scripture today.
 
Their world was essentially turned upside down when they saw the star that they followed to find Jesus. That journey wasn’t originally in their plans.
 
And then, once they made the journey, they planned to travel back by the same road because they believed Herod when he said he wanted to go and worship the new “King of the Jews.”
 
But then an angel came to them in their dreams and told them that Herod had different intentions.
 
So, to protect the baby and his family, they chose to change their plans and go home by a different road.
 
The scripture doesn’t give us a lot of details, but I imagine that changing their plans in this way was not an easy decision.
 
They were in a foreign land, and they didn’t have access to GPS like we have today.
 
They had to choose to take an unfamiliar path – one that could be dangerous for them and filled with the unknown.
 
The path they thought they would walk was no longer an option to them, so they had to re-evaluate and make a decision that they were not expecting to make.
 
And that is the lesson I want to focus on in today’s scripture.
 
The paths we walk are not straightforward either.
 
Many of us were taught to stick to the “straight and narrow” path growing up.
 
But what does that even mean?
 
Most of us have had enough life experience now to know that the path is never straight.
 
No matter how hard we try to plan our route, to plan our future, to anticipate what’s coming next, we never really know.
 
And closing ourselves off to the possibilities also closes the door on what God may be wanting for us.
 
If we live our lives in such rigid ways, we may miss some beautiful opportunities for personal growth and evolution, but we may also miss out on things that could make our lives better.
 
One thing I continue to learn and be reminded of as I do the pastoral work that I do is that we are never guaranteed tomorrow.
 
Tomorrow may come, but what we had planned may not be what happens.
 
Life can change in an instant, so expecting our path to be ”straight and narrow” just sets us up to be unable to cope when the path suddenly turns in a different direction.
 
Being aware of the possibility of our path changing unexpectedly helps us to be grateful for where we are on the journey, and reminds us not to take our present moment for granted.
 
Experience has told us that the road is never straight, no matter what people might want us to think.
 
So, if we keep this in mind, we know not to take for granted what we have today.
 
Knowing that the path isn’t straight helps us remember to do things like love more deeply and to tell people we love and care about them.
 
Because we don’t know what tomorrow holds and we aren’t guaranteed that our path will continue in the same direction tomorrow that it’s going today, it is helpful to live in the moment rather than living too much in the past or the future.
 
The Magi demonstrated for us this notion of living in the moment and not being so dead-set on following the straight path they thought they would be walking.
 
Instead, they were able to show Mary and Joseph a profound love for the baby Jesus that ultimately saved his life.
 
They remind us that it’s OK if our journeys haven’t looked like we thought they would.
 
So, as you navigate twists and turns, stay curious and open to where God might be leading.
 
May you find the courage to explore new routes and the wisdom to follow the One who will never leave or forsake you.
 
May each new path be a chance to trust God and discover deeper truths about the love that will never let you go. Amen.
 
God of starlight, We long to follow you. Like the Magi, we want to pick up the hems of our robes and run in your direction. Like the Magi, we want to kick up dust with our feet and make a joyful ruckus following your guiding star. Unfortunately, the stars can be hard to see from here. Your still, small voice can be hard to hear from here. So just as you guided the Magi, guide us, so that we can follow you. With hope in our hearts we pray, Amen.

Sermon References:
Commentary by Kayla Craig | A Sanctified Art LLC | sanctifiedart.org.
Prayer by Rev. Sarah (Are) Speed | A Sanctified Art LLC | sanctifiedart.org.