​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.