​Young at Heart Message
 
Today is the Sunday in many churches across the globe when Christians celebrate All Saints’ or All Souls’ Day.
 
It is also the time when people from across faith traditions celebrate and honour their loved ones who have moved on from this life to the next.
 
I wanted to better understand the significance of this day, so I did a little research that I’d like to share with you all today.
 
Some of you may already know much of this, but some of it was new to me, so I thought I would pass it along to you.
 
Let’s start by talking briefly about Allhallowtide.
 
Allhallowtide is the three-day celebration that includes all the various customs (both obsolete and still observed) of Hallowe’en, All Saints’, and All Souls’ Days.
 
Generally speaking, it is considered a time to remember the dead, including martyrs, saints, and all faithfully departed Christians.
 
The first day of Allhallowtide is All Hallows’ Eve and it falls on October 31st – of course, it’s known more commonly as Hallowe’en. It is also known as the Eve of All Hallows or the Eve of All Saints’ Day.
 
The word “hallow,” by the way, is synonymous with “saint” or “holy person.”
 
Traditionally, it was believed that the souls of the departed wandered the earth until All Saints’ Day, and All Hallows Eve provided one last chance for the dead to gain vengeance on their enemies before moving to the next world.
 
In order to avoid being recognized by any soul that might be seeking vengeance, people would wear masks or costumes to disguise their identities.
 
Today, children (and adults!) perpetuate this custom by dressing in costumes and going door to door to collect candy and treats.
 
While our current Hallowe’en customs do not necessarily reflect the spiritual significance of the evening, it was also historically a time when some believed that the veil between the material world and the afterlife thinned.
 
If any of you have ever seen the Disney movie Coco, it represents a good example of cultures that still believe this thin veil exists and that those who have gone before us seek our help in getting peace in the afterlife.

The second day of Allhallowtide is called All Saints’ Day, and it falls on November 1st.
 
This is a day that some Christian traditions honour all the saints and martyrs – both known and unknown.
 
It seeks in particular to honour the blessed who have not been canonized and have no special feast day in the Catholic Church.
 
The third and final day of Allhallowtide is All Souls’ Day and it falls on November 2nd.
 
This day commemorates all the faithful departed.
 
Many Christian traditions today, including our own, tend to combine All Saints’ and All Souls’ Day into one celebration to honour those who have gone before us and to acknowledge the impact our ancestors have had on our lives.
 
If you have not already noticed, today we are doing exactly that and are focusing our worship on honouring our ancestors along with those faithfully departed souls who have been associated with Good Shepherd or who have had an impact on our own faith journeys.
 
In other words, today we honour the saints in our own lives who have helped us become the people we are today, and who have impacted our faith and our relationship to the church.

The Message

It is curious, then, that the lectionary chooses the passage from the Gospel of John in which Jesus resurrects Lazarus to commemorate All Saints’ Day.
 
Nothing like causing those of us who have lost loved ones to wonder why Jesus couldn’t also raise our loved ones from death! Or, at the very least, it might cause us to wonder why Jesus couldn’t have healed our loved ones so they didn’t die.
 
This passage about Lazarus is interesting because it only appears in the Gospel of John, and Lazarus isn’t mentioned again after Jesus resurrects him.
 
So, we don’t actually get to know what happened to Lazarus after this scene.
 
Some traditions do make claims that he becomes a Bishop, but there is no agreement on that, and there is definitely no mention of him again in the Bible.
 
So, we are left hanging with regard to what happened to Lazarus after he was resurrected.
 
However, I suspect that we don’t hear about Lazarus again because what happens to him after the resurrection is not the important part of this passage.
 
In fact, I am not even sure the resurrection is the most important part of this passage, believe it or not, at least with regard to the celebration of All Saints’ Day.
 
For those of us who have lost loved ones very close to us, I think the hope in this passage is actually Jesus’ reaction to the situation.
 
It is not realistic for any of the characters in the Bible to expect Jesus to resurrect all of their loved ones (in fact, most of the characters in this passage are confused or even scared, and even Lazarus seems a little confused about what happened).
 
If resurrection (or prevention of death) was something Jesus promised to everyone, it would have happened a lot more frequently in the Biblical accounts of his life.
 
Instead, I think the reason this passage is in here is to demonstrate that Jesus experiences grief much like we do when a loved one is lost.
 
Not only does Jesus experience grief, but he walks alongside us as we experience grief and he weeps along with us.
 
Jesus may have had the power to save Lazarus, but he does not, in part because he cannot possibly save everyone.
 
The world is too big and there are too many people in need for Jesus to conceivably be able to save everyone.
 
Not only that, but logistically, the world would be a very different place if everyone just got to live forever or was cured whenever they asked for it.
 
This passage, instead, is meant to demonstrate that when we weep, Jesus weeps too.
 
When we grieve, Jesus grieves, too.
 
Jesus does not leave us in our moments of grief and loss, nor does he cause death, pain, or grief.
 
Instead, Jesus joins us in our grief and loss. He sits next to us, wraps his arms around us and wraps us in love and tender care.
 
He weeps alongside us and never once leaves us in our time of despair.
 
It may feel to us sometimes like God causes our pain, at the very least because our prayers for God to cure or heal a loved one cannot always be answered.
 
But Jesus shows us in this passage that pain and grief is bound to happen, and when it does, he is right there with us.
 
This passage is offered to us on All Saints’ Day because it is a reminder that in Jesus we find hope and we find rest.
 
We find a God who shares in our grief, our pain, and our sorrow. A God who wraps us in loving arms as we experience the pain of memories of our loved ones.
 
This Sunday we celebrate, we grieve, we mourn, and we experience the profound love of God as we remember those we have loved and lost.
 
In our grief, we find hope in a God who loves us so deeply that they would send Jesus to walk with us in our pain and to experience that pain right along with us.
 
In that hope, and with all our love, we honour and celebrate the people we love who have gone before us and paved the way.
 
May we celebrate and honour them today by lighting candles in memory of our loved ones, and then by receiving God’s grace through the sacrament of Holy Communion.
 
In the name of Jesus, Amen.
 
Since we are going to be remembering the souls of the departed in just a moment, I want to offer a prayer to help us prepare our hearts for this time of remembering. Let us pray:

I give you this one thought to keep.
I’m with you still.
I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush.
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not think of me as gone
I am with you still at each new dawn.
Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
Do not stand there at my grave and cry.
I am not there. I did not die.

Amen.

Young at Heart Message
 
Imagine, for a moment, that you are talking to your spouse.
 
You somewhat casually mention that in a few weeks, you’re both going to visit your mother a few towns over for the day.
 
Your spouse dismissively says “sure, sure, sounds good honey!”
 
A week later, you say “we’ll need to leave early the day we go to visit my mother, so let’s make sure we pack the night before.”
 
Your spouse says, “wait, what?! We’re going to visit your mother?? You never told me that!”
 
An argument follows in which you say “yes, I told you!”
 
Your spouse says “no you didn’t,” and eventually one of you figures you made a mistake, and you move on.
 
The night before the trip to your mother’s house comes, and you remind your spouse that you need to pack what you need tonight because you have to leave early tomorrow.
 
And again, your spouse acts as though this is the first time they’ve heard that you’re going to your mother’s.
 
In an exasperated way, you throw up your hands and say “well, I guess there’s just no use telling you anything, you don’t listen anyway!”
 
Does this sound familiar to those of you who have been married?
 
Sometimes, maybe it really is that your spouse wasn’t truly paying attention, didn’t hear you properly, forgot, or some other very reasonable explanation.
 
But other times, I think it’s that we don’t really want to hear what our partner is saying because we don’t really want to admit that we don’t want to participate.
 
In these scenarios, sometimes we also will deflect, bringing up a totally different subject to take the pressure off.
 
Or, we might say something that sounds a bit childish. Something like “fine, if I have to go to your mother’s, then I’m not driving. You’ll have to drive, and I’ll nap. I’m not navigating either – you’re on your own!”
 
Or perhaps we’d try to barter with our partner.
 
We might say “fine, I’ll go to your mother’s, but then you have to go golfing with me next week!”
 
At the very least, if we have to do something we don’t really want to do, maybe we can get something better out of the situation.
 
Of course, the reality is that it does us no good to avoid listening to our partner because it just leads to more stress and frustration in the long run.
 
But, in the moment, it’s something we can push out of our minds until we’re forced to think about it.
 
It is often easier in the moment to avoid thinking too hard about things we don’t want to do, or things we would prefer weren’t going to happen at all.
 
If we avoid it, perhaps it won’t happen.
 
But if it does happen, at least maybe we can get something out of it for ourselves!
 
While this might sound silly, this is the situation in which we encounter the disciples in this week’s scripture passage.
 
The Message
​
If I followed the lectionary suggested texts perfectly, today’s scripture reading would not have included the section in which Jesus takes the disciples aside and tells them what is going to happen to him.
 
Luckily, you have a renegade pastor who doesn’t always follow the rules!
 
I included that section because I think it’s important.
 
Much like our little scenario earlier, this is the third time Jesus has foreshadowed for his disciples his own death and resurrection.
 
The third time.
 
And what do his disciples do?
 
James and John ask if they can sit at his right side and his left side.
 
It’s almost as though they didn’t hear what Jesus was saying at all.
 
Or, perhaps, they didn’t want to hear what Jesus was saying.
 
It was easier to think about what would happen to them than to think about the prediction of Jesus’s death in that moment.
 
I suppose they figured that if they could get their commitment before Jesus died, they would at least be certain of their future despite the difficult news they just heard.
 
Really, what they were trying to do, it seems, was take the easy way out.
 
Rather than do the hard work that Jesus has been telling them over and over again that they would need to do once he died, they wanted to take the easy way out.
 
The definition of a magnanimous person is, according to the Miriam-Webster Dictionary, “showing or suggesting a courageous spirit or generosity of mind.”
 
And the definition of pusillanimous is “lacking courage and resolution.”
 
Magnanimous people set their sights high and, in everything they do, they aspire to do what is best, even if it means sacrificing themselves to do so.
 
Not fearing the cost of heroic ambitions, magnanimous people strive for excellence and hunger for greatness, but they do so with generosity of mind and a courageous spirit.
 
By contrast, pusillanimous people regularly opt for whatever is easier or more quickly attainable.
 
Thus, they deny themselves the joy and meaning and satisfaction that comes from surrounding themselves in love and care for others.
 
It may seem, by these definitions, that James and John are pusillanimous people – looking for the easy way out.
 
Jesus knows, however, that they are merely expressing what all of the disciples are thinking: we have done the hard work of following Jesus, and we deserve our just reward when his journey ends.
 
Jesus turns this somewhat misguided desire for greatness on its head, though, when he tells them the true path of heroic ambition does not lead to a seat on either side of him.
 
Rather, it goes in a shockingly different direction.
 
Human nature, of course, is such that we desire greatness in the traditional sense: power, privilege, prestige, or wealth.
 
Jesus challenges his disciples, and us, to imagine greatness differently.
 
He says, “Whoever wishes to be great among you” must set out in what seems the opposite direction of greatness.
 
In the Christian life, greatness is measured in serving; in expending ourselves in love, sacrifice and generosity to others.
 
Moreover, honour is found not in titles or privilege or celebrity or wealth, but in goodness and humility.
 
In the strange world of the reign of God, power is not a matter of ruling over others but of living on their behalf.
 
Jesus reminds us, once again, that the road to glory is only by way of the cross.
 
Even Jesus does not receive glory except through suffering and death on a cross.
 
Jesus is encouraging his disciples to be magnanimous – to have courageous spirits and generous minds.
 
He doesn’t want them to avoid the challenges ahead.
 
Jesus has no intention of avoiding the difficult path that is laid before him, and he doesn’t want the disciples, or us, to avoid the challenges either.
 
Jesus wants us to approach life with courage and generosity.
 
He knows it would be far easier to run – he could avoid his own suffering by hiding away, leaving the area, and being a fugitive for the rest of his life.
 
While that might not mean an easy life, it would certainly be easier than facing the prospect of his death head on.
 
And yet, he is challenging his disciples to walk that difficult journey with him courageously, and to remain dedicated to sharing his wisdom and words after he is gone.
 
Jesus says he doesn’t know who will be on his right or left sides.
 
But that isn’t the point anyway.
 
Jesus doesn’t want his disciples to avoid the hard truth that he is heading into Jerusalem to be put to death.
 
He wants them to acknowledge it, to learn to move forward, and to continue their journey of love and care for each other and the world.
 
It’s an important but difficult lesson that Jesus repeats over and over again.
 
And when Jesus repeats these kinds of lessons, it is worth remembering for our own lives.
 
So, may we heed Jesus’s words and remember that in order to be truly great, we must be “the servant of all the others. And if you want to be first, you must be everyone’s slave.”
 
May we remember that as a Christian community, we are the servants to humanity and to all of God’s creation.
 
May we choose magnanimity – courageous spirits and generosity of mind – and may we be servants of God and of our fellow humans in as many ways as we can be.
 
Amen.
 
Let us pray:

God of grace, Christ comes among us not with power and dominion but in vulnerability and humble service. We do not look up to see Christ; we look down, and find our salvation there, kneeling at our feet, serving us in love. We thank you for your grace, and pray that you may fill us with your humble love, in the power of your spirit, in the presence of Jesus Christ. Amen.

​Young at Heart Message
 
Who here remembers when Beanie Babies were popular?
 
It’s definitely something that people in my generation would remember, and perhaps many of your kids had Beanie Babies when they were growing up.
 
We all thought they’d be worth something someday, and now I think they aren’t worth much.
 
Anyway, I had a decent sized collection of Beanie Babies when I was probably Junior High age, give or take.

I tended to be quite attached to things when I was that age.
 
It could sometimes feel like things I wanted were hard to come by, so when I had things, I wanted to keep them as long as I could.
 
I can only imagine that if, at that age, I had the opportunity to ask Jesus how I could get into heaven and he told me to donate all of my Beanie Babies to the poor, I probably would have said “nah, I’m good. I’ll take my chances.”
 
I’m being a bit facetious, of course, but it would have been hard to make me get rid of my things when I was that age.
 
In fact, when our bedrooms got too full of things, my sister and I would store our precious items in boxes in the basement.
 
Those boxes contained toys we no longer used, mostly, and a lot of stuffed animals.
 
I mean, a lot of stuffed animals.
 
Every now and then, my dad would get into a mood and would want to go through those boxes and start just tossing things, donating things, etc.
 
And of course when he did that, my sister and I would cry and say we needed our things!
 
It was an unjust world when my dad would choose what things he thought we didn’t need to keep anymore!
 
I never understood his seemingly sudden interest in getting rid of all of our things.
 
Just because we didn’t play with them regularly anymore didn’t mean we didn’t want to keep them!
 
Maybe we’d go through those boxes and decide to play with those old toys again!
 
There was a sense of nostalgia, at least, when we would be reunited with our things we hadn’t seen in a while.
 
It was like Christmas all over again!
 
The reality, though, was that we truly didn’t need any of that old stuff.
 
Essentially, once it was out of sight, it was out of mind until Dad decided it was time to get rid of the stuff.
 
So, like I said, if Jesus was the one telling me I needed to donate those old toys, I would not have felt much different than when my dad was the one telling me.
 
Once the items my dad got rid of were gone, though, our little broken hearts soon forgot all about it, and we were content with the things we had and currently used and enjoyed.
 
The heartbreak was short-lived because our attachment to those things was mostly in our heads, not our hearts.
 
It was not an easy thing, though, to let go of the things we’d felt we’d waited so long for.
 
And I will admit today that I have truly turned into my father’s daughter.
 
I completely understand now his need to purge the house of the clutter and the unnecessary things.
 
I now do the same thing, and I’m sure he’s looking down on me and saying, “I told ya so!”
 
And, if he were still around, I would thank him for teaching me such a valuable lesson.
 
The Message
Feeling forced to give up things that were, in the moment, important to me, was difficult as a child.
 
And, it can be incredibly difficult as an adult too.
 
As a kid, I wasn’t the one who necessarily worked hard to get those things, unless I paid for them with my allowance.
 
But as an adult? I work hard for the things I have!
 
And, I imagine that the man who ran up to Jesus and asked him how he could inherit eternal life felt a similar way when Jesus told him to sell the things he owned, give the money to the poor, and follow him.
 
I can actually picture the man’s face when Jesus says this. The passage says the man was shocked and went away grieving.
 
I imagine his face fell as he began thinking about his possessions and how hard he worked for them.
 
Jesus then says something that I think is quite challenging for many, if not most, Christians.
 
He says, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!”
 
This is challenging for most of us because it is incredibly easy for people to convince themselves they are not wealthy.
 
Most of us live into the income we make.
 
I may have used this as an example before, but I’ll share my own life’s example again.
 
I used to live on practically nothing.
 
I was close enough to the poverty line that I nearly qualified for welfare at one point in my life.
 
At that point, all I wanted was to make enough money that things would be just a little bit easier, and I wouldn’t have to worry quite as much about money.
 
Looking back on that time in my life, I have no idea how I survived.
 
I have no idea how I survived because I still feel like I’m barely surviving most of the time, and I make a much better income now than I did then.
 
But that’s part of the problem, right?
 
We almost always live within our means. The more we earn, the more we spend, the more we desire, and the more we feel like we don’t have.
 
Because most of us do this, we live most of our lives in a perpetual circle of feeling like what we have is never enough.
 
I am certain I thought I could never have enough Beanie Babies!
 
And even now, I find myself longing to earn just a little bit more, so that things will be just a little easier.
 
I’m essentially in the same mindset I was when I was actually poor.
 
So, it’s easy for me to feel like Jesus’s words do not apply to me.
 
It can’t possibly be hard for me to get into the kingdom of God, because I’m not wealthy! Whew!
 
Except that Jesus doesn’t really define wealth, does he?
 
He simply tells the man to sell all of his possessions, give his money to the poor, and follow him.
 
If I think about it this way, then I am definitely wealthy.
 
I have plenty of possessions I could, in theory, sell so that I could give that money to the poor.
 
But boy, is it hard to imagine in today’s world doing something like that!
 
Why?
 
Well, for starters, I would be homeless.
 
Actually, in my case, that’s not true. I would have a home, but nothing else, and I honestly wouldn’t last very long in today’s world.
 
I couldn’t effectively do my job, I would be miserable and uncomfortable, and I would have to rely on other people to cover my basic needs.
 
Not to mention, I’m not sure how I could truly follow Jesus in today’s world if I wasn’t properly caring for myself.
 
So, Jesus’s words are a real challenge here.
 
How can we extrapolate something meaningful from this passage without feeling guilty about the life we do live and the things we do own, while still living into the essence of what Jesus is saying?
 
First of all, much like the passage just before this one that we heard last Sunday, we have to remember the context in which Jesus is living.
 
In the first century, wealth looked quite different than poverty.
 
And, there were societal expectations for caring for ascetics and religious practitioners – begging for alms, for example, was common practice at the time.
 
So telling people to give up their possessions and follow Jesus – a group that likely had most of their basic needs for shelter, food, and clothing met by the generosity of strangers – was not at all the same as doing something similar today.
 
Today, the only effective way I could see to do that would be to commit oneself to the monastic life – either becoming a monk or a nun and living in a monastery type setting.
 
And of course, we couldn’t all realistically do that.
 
So, does that mean the kingdom of God is inaccessible to people today?
 
Of course not. Much like last week’s text, we cannot assume that Jesus could even imagine what the world would look like today.
 
So, as we are thinking through today’s passage, it might be helpful to frame it differently.
 
Certainly, I suspect Jesus would approve of my dad’s method of going through the things we owned occasionally and donating those items we no longer needed or used to people who could use them more than we could.
 
I don’t think Jesus would in good faith suggest that the only way we could enter the kingdom of God is to sell everything we own and live on the streets.
 
If I thought Jesus would recommend that today, I would be a hypocrite myself because I can’t conceive of doing that and still being able to serve in a ministry role, or any job for that matter.
 
I suspect Jesus would recommend we do consider looking at the lives we lead and seeing if there are areas we could be more generous.
 
Perhaps it’s going through the things we have and giving away the things we realistically can part with.
 
But perhaps it’s also taking a look at where and how we spend our time, our money, or our other resources.
 
Are we giving of ourselves in ways that honour the gifts we have been given to allow us to better serve others?
 
Are we donating when and where we can?
 
Do we have a plan for our resources if something were to happen to us?
 
I think there are many people today who might struggle to give up their worldly possessions, but who are at the same time incredibly generous with their time and the gifts God has provided them.
 
There are others who feel being generous with their time is difficult, but who are better able to part with their things.
 
And then there are people who are generous with giving away a higher percentage of their money than others.
 
And I think most of us are not necessarily able to give of our time, our talent, our resources, our energy, our money, and our possessions at any given time.
 
We likely go through seasons where we can more effectively be generous in some of those ways, but most of us cannot give in all of those ways all the time.
 
And I don’t think Jesus would say that if we can’t do it all, all the time, we aren’t good enough.
 
Jesus ends today’s passage by saying “many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”
 
Each of us, regardless of our economic position in society, can be generous in a variety of ways.
 
Those who hoard money, possessions, time, resources, and who seem addicted to accumulating more and more without any thought for other people may be “the first” that Jesus is referring to.
 
And those who are generous in some of those same ways may be who Jesus is referring to as the last.
 
It is possible that even a person who has nothing hoards the few things that they do have.
 
Likewise, it is possible for a person who has nothing to share of the very little they do have with others.
 
I don’t think that only the economically poor are the ones considered the “last” in this scenario.
 
The “last” are those people who give of themselves in whatever ways they are able while also caring for themselves so they can continue to serve others.
 
So, as we all head into a long weekend celebrating the things in our lives that we are thankful for, let us also remember to think about the ways in which we give of ourselves.
 
Most of have what we need to survive, and most, if not all, of us in this sanctuary have what we need to thrive.
 
There is value in celebrating gratitude, and there is incredible value in celebrating generosity, as well.
 
So as we leave here today, may we remember to be grateful for the things we have – not in comparison to anyone else, but in terms of our own personal happiness, contentment, and satisfaction.
 
And, if there are things we can let go of that would not be a detriment to our happiness, our contentment, or our life satisfaction, then may we consider heeding Jesus’s advice and giving of those things to others so that we can spread joy, safety, and comfort to our neighbours.
 
In gratitude for all that we have, we say “Amen.”
 
Let us pray:
​
Gracious God, we come before you today in deep and humble gratitude for the gifts you bring to our lives. There are times when we get caught up in our own suffering and forget to remain grateful for the things in our lives that are going well. It can be easy to get caught up in our own woes, but we are grateful for your gentle reminders that all things considered, we have more than enough.
 
We pray today for your guidance and wisdom. Thanksgiving is a time when we remember to be grateful for all that we have, but we ask that you help us remember to be grateful throughout the year as well. With gratitude, and in your Holy name, we pray. Amen.

Young at Heart Message
 
I bet you never thought that we would be talking about sponges during a worship service, and yet, today our message is going to start off with a discussion about sponges.
 
I have two sponges here – one is a used sponge that has done its time washing a bunch of dishes.
 
It is already wet and has been squeezed out many times.
 
The other is a brand new sponge – still dry from the packaging and eager to absorb water.
 
Which of these sponges do you suppose will be able to absorb more water?
 
I have two bowls with water in them. Should we test it out?
 
I put the same amount of water in both bowls.
 
Let’s see which one will hold more water.
 
The older sponge that has already absorbed water in the past wasn’t able to absorb the water in the bowl as easily as the new sponge.
 
The new sponge was eager to absorb water and absorbed pretty much all of the water in the bowl.
 
It may even have room to absorb some of the water from the other bowl.
 
What do you think the purpose of this “experiment” was? What does it teach us?
 
Ultimately, this demonstration reminds us that as we get older and have absorbed more information and have more life experience, it is not as easy for us to absorb new things.
 
Let me give you another real-life example.
 
As most of you know, I was a professional dog trainer in my previous life.
 
Part of my job was to teach training classes.
 
The vast majority of the time, I was teaching adults who had a dog that needed training.
 
I had a lot of tricks I used to help adult learners who had already absorbed a lot of information in the past and came with a lot of assumptions.
 
Adults, I noticed, tended to think they were already experts on how to train dogs, and often they had a lot of previous knowledge or experience.
 
This previous knowledge and experience was not necessarily the best knowledge or experience.
 
Many adults came to classes needing to unlearn old habits as much as they needed to learn new habits.
 
They were like the older sponge – already filled with knowledge and experience that wasn’t necessarily conducive to working with their current dog.
 
They had a very hard time because they were simultaneously “wringing out” the old knowledge and experience while trying absorb the new information.
 
Some adults were better at this than others.
 
But, on the rare occasion when a client would ask if their child could join the class, I observed that most, if not all, of the kids were much better trainers than their parents.
 
Why?
 
Because they were fresh, new sponges – ready to absorb new information.
 
And because they didn’t have prior knowledge or experience, they didn’t have to try to “wring out” any previous ideas of what dog training should be.
 
They were eager to learn and work with their dogs, and quickly surpassed any training skills the adults had.
 
It was fascinating to watch, and it taught me even more about the challenges of teaching adult learners.
 
And of course, this experience translates to most anything, including scripture interpretation.
 
As we get older, we tend to get wiser, but we also become more set in our ways.
 
Our knowledge and experience becomes vaster, but we also become a little less capable of absorbing new information that might be different than what we were taught previously.
 
It is, of course, the human condition.
 
We are all sponges when it comes to learning!
 
But, our “spongy-ness” changes over time as we are molded into adult versions of ourselves.
 
So, where does this leave us with today’s scripture?
 
The Message
​
Today’s lectionary passages can be incredibly challenging passages to read, and even more challenging to preach about.
 
Partly, the reason they are so challenging is because as soon as (adult) people hear them, they immediately start to form a “sermon” in their own mind.
 
Most adults have already formed opinions about these passages, whether they really know it or not.
 
Some will hear the word “divorce” and immediately assume Jesus is condemning it. 
 
This might create deep feelings of guilt or shame for those who have experienced divorce in their lives, or for those who were children of divorced parents.
 
Some will hear “divorce” and immediately jump to conclusions about everyone who has experienced divorce.
 
Some will hear this passage and assume Jesus is dictating “rules” about divorce or marriage that are applicable in all times and places.
 
But no matter what, if a pastor chooses to preach on these passages, it can be difficult to simultaneously “wring out” past knowledge, experience, and assumptions, while also opening people up to being able to “absorb,” or think about different ways of hearing this text.
 
So, let’s look at this passage a little bit closer to see what Jesus might mean here.
 
Before we do, it is important to understand the context in which Jesus is speaking.
 
It’s always important to understand context when we read the Bible, but it is especially important when we are reading passages that have been used in the past to place guilt and shame on people.
 
As we know, Jesus rarely, if ever, speaks with the purpose of making people feel guilt or shame.
 
So, it’s hard to imagine he would do that in this case, either.
 
We have to remember that Jesus lived in the first century.
 
The concept of divorce in his time was, first of all, that only men could divorce their wives.
 
And, they could do so for any reason – small or large.
 
A man could simply decide he was sick of his wife and would rather be with another woman, and he could divorce her and toss her aside.
 
Unlike today, when women have more rights and the ability to find work and earn a living supporting themselves, women and children in the first century had very limited rights, and no recourse.
 
The Pharisees in this passage are trying to catch Jesus off guard and are referencing the Law of Moses specifically.
 
Deuteronomy 24:1,  which is the passage being referenced, assumes marriage for most people, but it also assumes a man’s right to divorce “if she does not please him.”
 
It says nothing about a woman being able to choose divorce.
 
Within the context of the first century then, Jesus explaining that God made man and woman gives women a sense of agency in a time when they had none.
 
Jesus then talks about men and women becoming one person when they choose to marry one another.
 
Jesus is talking about a partnership, whereas the assumption in that time was that men controlled the relationship and the marriage.
 
While this passage may seem quite strict and prescriptive of behavior in marriages, it is actually quite radical for that time period.
 
Jesus says that both men and women who divorce are unfaithful to their spouse if they remarry.
 
Again, this might sound harsh in today’s culture, but in this context, he is emphasizing the equality of partnership, and he’s suggesting accountability for both men and women.
 
This is huge and unexpected in a world where women were not considered equal partners.
 
Jesus goes on, then, to include children too.
 
Children are so valuable that they help us enter the realm of God.
 
Children are fresh little sponges – eager to learn and grow and change the world with each new generation!
 
The disciples tell the children to stop bothering Jesus, but he tells them to let the children come to him.
 
Those children had not yet absorbed the rules that their parents had.
 
Jesus didn’t need to teach them to unlearn what they thought they knew about these matters, because they didn’t already have the norms set forth by previous knowledge and experience.
 
This passage is not a condemnation. Rather, it is a reminder that God’s love liberates.
 
This passage is not as much about divorce as it is about recognizing the image of God in everyone – especially those who have tended to be disempowered by society.
 
It is not intended to be a prescriptive passage, and it definitely is not intended to make people feel a sense of guilt and shame if they have been divorced, if they are thinking about divorce, or if they are in a situation that may require divorce.
 
I vividly remember a woman I knew who was taught, perhaps even using this passage, that divorce would mean being sentenced to hell.
 
She had been divorced, out of necessity (her former spouse was abusive and she was not safe in that situation), and yet she believed until her dying day that she could not be absolved of her “sin” of divorce.
 
I will never forget that because I don’t think Jesus would ever intend to place that kind of guilt or shame on someone.
 
There is too much good news in the life and work of Jesus to lead me to believe that if Jesus sat down with that woman, he would condemn her.
 
Jesus would not treat her or anyone else as though they were not lovingly made in God’s image.
 
Jesus didn’t spend his entire ministry trying to teach us how to love one another, just to condemn us in a few passages.
 
You might be wondering, then, if I believe Jesus is condoning divorce.
 
I don’t believe Jesus is condemning or condoning divorce. It’s a reality of the world he lives in, and a reality of the world we live in.
 
I believe he’s addressing the question the Pharisees asked him, using their assumptions and the social norms in place at the time, to demonstrate one small way that humans could open themselves up to better loving other humans.
 
Jesus set examples for us to follow, albeit in his time and place, which is the only context he had.
 
Jesus could not have predicted that in the year 2024, women would be treated at least in some parts of the world more as equals. So he did his best with the cultural implications he had to work with.
 
We have no business treating anyone as though they were not created in God’s image.
 
This text uses a first-century situation to tell us to stop participating in traditions that disempower and destroy human beings and to start living in love.
 
If we consider the context of this situation, it becomes a bit easier to set aside our prior knowledge and experience with this text and understand that Jesus did not intend to condemn people with his words.
 
Rather, he intended to widen the scope for people in that time period – to move the needle ever so slightly toward justice and equality.
 
If we can open ourselves up to new and different possibilities for this text, we can hear the passage as good and hopeful news:
 
Each of us – men, women, children – everyone – is created in God’s image.
 
We are loved, and we belong in Christ – not to feel guilt or shame, but only to feel loved and hopeful.
 
Amen.
 
Let us pray:
 
Loving and gracious God, we come before you in gratitude for the gentle reminder that we are lovingly made in your image. You remind us through your Son, Jesus Christ, that while there is always room for improvement, we are also loved just as we are in this time and place. May we each continue to feel your love and grace surround us, and may we remember this love as we receive Holy Communion in unity with our Christian siblings around the world. Amen.

Young at Heart Message
 
Have you ever experienced a stumbling block to your faith?
 
I have experienced several throughout my life.
 
The first stumbling block that I can recall - and perhaps the most impactful for a variety of reasons – happened when I was maybe 12 years old.
 
I didn’t go to Sunday school for some reason, and my cousin, who was the same age as me and also in my Sunday school class, told me that I was going to go to hell because I missed Sunday school.
 
I was distraught. I couldn’t understand how something out of my control would automatically doom me to hell.
 
It didn’t make sense. So I asked the smartest person I knew at the time – my Dad.
 
And I distinctly remember my Dad laughing when I told him about it.
 
Here I was, practically in tears, worried about my soul and wondering how I could be doomed so early in life.
 
I was probably the only kid in the world to commit myself to hell so soon in life.
 
And my Dad laughed.
 
But then he told me that if I was going to hell for something like that, then we were all going to hell for some reason or another.
 
And then he probably said something more about hell, but I don’t remember anything after that.
 
I just remember that he had assured me that I was not, in fact, going to hell.
 
But this scenario was a huge stumbling block to faith and religion and my path to God.
 
I didn’t know much about God or Jesus, but what I did know was that I had been taught that Jesus loved me. God loved me.
 
And if I was so loved by God, then how could a God who loved me be so flippant about condemning me to hell (or making people believe that other people were condemned to hell)?
 
Now of course, my cousin probably doesn’t remember this at all. And I can’t blame her for this – she was just repeating something she’d been taught at some point.
 
She wasn’t old enough to know any more than I did on the subject of God or hell.
 
But this was a stumbling block for me, nonetheless.
 
I have had other stumbling blocks in my life, too.
 
My natural curiosity and my propensity to ask questions and be skeptical of the answers I received turned me away from organized religion for a large chunk of my life.
 
But it also allowed me to spend many years asking questions, understanding what it means to love our neighbours as ourselves, and to approach God with wonder and awe.
 
I was free to explore, to stumble, and to be curious and open-minded, not just about religion but about God, about other people, and about myself.
 
Most of us have probably experienced at least one stumbling block to our faith in our lives.
 
An experience, a comment, something you read or heard, or something that just didn’t seem to jive with what you were taught when you were growing up.
 
Those stumbling blocks helped formed your faith as much as the things you’ve learned in church, in Sunday school, or in the world.
 
We meet Jesus and the disciples today at the precise moment when the disciples experience quite a large stumbling block.
 
The Message
​
The disciples see a man helping people in the name of Jesus. But John says “he wasn’t one of us, so we told him to stop.”
 
Jesus then basically says “what?! Why would you stop someone from helping people just because they aren’t ‘one of us’?!”
 
The disciples are essentially separating themselves from everyone else.
 
They are implying that only people who are in their folds can do what they do.
 
If we look closely, John said “he wasn’t one of us.” The stumbling block they are experiencing is an “us vs. them” mentality.
 
And Jesus sets them straight by telling the disciples that just because someone isn’t walking with them directly doesn’t mean that the person can’t be doing good work and spreading good news in the world.
 
Humans can be very skilled at stumbling blocks, which isn’t necessarily something we would want to try to be skilled at.
 
Sometimes stumbling blocks are put in our path through no fault of our own, but often, especially when it comes to faith, we create our own stumbling blocks. And sometimes, we put stumbling blocks in the paths of others.
 
My cousin put a huge stumbling block along my faith journey without knowing it.
 
Which is exactly what the disciples do here. They started to think of themselves as “better than” or “more than” them.
 
And of course them is anyone who isn’t in their tight circle of followers.
 
So not only do they create their own stumbling block, but they drop this stumbling block onto the path of the person they told to stop simply because he wasn’t “one of them.”
 
How often do faithful Christians do these types of things to others, and by extension to themselves, I wonder?
 
How many of you have either believed that your denomination or religious tradition is the one and only “right” way, or know someone who has been taught that or believes it currently?
 
I know I have heard that, and I know people who believe it.
 
But Jesus uses some strong words to caution us against such notions of “us” vs. “them.” He cautions us against this idea that we are somehow better than them.
 
I am not, and will never be, a fire-and-brimstone, put-the-fear-of-God-into-you preacher.
 
That doesn’t feel like good news to me. If anything, it feels like bad news meant to scare you into running toward Jesus, rather than good news intended to remind you that Jesus’s arms are always open for you.
 
And I don’t think Jesus is a hellfire preacher either.
 
So why does he offer such strong words to the disciples here, and why does he talk about hell?
 
I think we need to put his language into the larger context of his entire life and teachings.
 
What does that mean? I think we need to read Jesus’s language as spoken with all the love and compassion in the world.
 
The disciples want to “copyright” their work, and the work of Jesus, so that only they own the rights to him and his work.
 
As far as stumbling blocks go, that’s a huge one because Jesus wants the exact opposite – he wants his message to get out to as many people as possible. He doesn’t want it limited to only a few who are “allowed” to share the message.
 
Putting themselves between people and Jesus to gatekeep is exactly the opposite of what Jesus wants.
 
This behavior only limits what should be open and available to everyone.
 
The disciples had good intentions, but ultimately, all their actions did was turn someone away from Jesus.
 
So Jesus feels like he needs to use some pretty harsh language with the disciples, but it ultimately comes from a place of love – not just love for them, but love for all those people who are following outside of the inner circle.
 
He tells the disciples that placing these stumbling blocks in the paths of others – “causing even one of my followers to sin” he says – would be terrible.
 
Just don’t do it, guys. Come on. It would be better for you to not follow me at all than it would for you to cause someone to turn away from me.
 
So, Jesus says, if part of you is causing you to sin, do away with it (metaphorically). It would be better to go into God’s kingdom with only one eye, for example, than to keep both eyes but be thrown into hell.
 
In other words, don’t allow yourself to get caught up in these antiquated notions of “us” vs. “them.” Don’t allow yourselves to believe that you are better than others when all they’re trying to do is follow me, too.
 
No one owns the good news. Not the disciples, not any one denomination, and not even the “big C” Church.
 
Jesus is reminding us that humility is important, and as much as we’d like to think so, we don’t know everything.
 
So let’s set aside any thoughts that we do know it all.
 
If the disciples teach us anything throughout the Gospels, it’s that they were far from perfect. And they had direct access to Jesus!
 
So there is no way we have perfect faith, either. So let’s not assume we do.
 
Jesus ends this passage by saying “Salt is good. But if it no longer tastes like salt, how can it be made salty again?”
 
In other words, if we stumble, or if we start placing stumbling blocks in the paths of others, how can we get back onto our own path and stop hindering others?
 
Jesus has an answer for that, too. “Have salt among you and live at peace with each other.”
 
There’s more than enough salt to go around. Have your salt, but don’t prevent others from having theirs, too.
 
Live at peace with each other.
 
One of my teachers this semester for my discernment class says “be at ease.”
 
Friends, be at ease. Live at peace with each other.
 
Don’t worry about who’s right and who’s wrong.
 
Jesus shares such good news with us, and his arms are open wide especially for each of us.
 
Not just for us individually, but for all.
 
It’s not necessary to scare anyone into loving Jesus.
 
Jesus’s arms are lovingly open wide for everyone, no matter how many times we might stumble.
 
Amen.

Young at Heart Message
 
One of our musicians wanted to incorporate what he calls a “Creature Feature” into our service today as part of our Young at Heart Message.
 
But, he felt like he wasn’t comfortable doing it himself, so I said I would incorporate it into our message today.
 
Most Sundays I try to offer a Young at Heart message as part of the Sunday sermon.
 
I do this for two reasons:
 
The first is because we no longer regularly have children present in worship, but if children do show up, I hope having a more accessible preliminary sermon is helpful and enjoyable for them.
 
The second is because often adults learn just as much from these messages as kids do!
 
Since we are all young at heart, I try to be creative with this part of the message.
 
So, Michael brought this animal for me to use today. His Dad received it as a gift at his school where he was a caretaker.
 
What kind of animal do you suppose this is?
 
I think it’s probably a tiger, but since it’s not coloured like any real animal, it could be a striped lion I suppose as well.
 
The fun thing about this tiger is that it isn’t just a pretty face - it also sings and dances!
 
I’ll play it for us, though some of you may not be able to hear it.
 
If you didn’t hear it, the tiger sings and dances to the song “Wild Thing.”
 
If you aren’t familiar with the song, it goes “Wild Thing! You make my heart sing! You make everything groovy. Wild thing! Wild Thing, I think I love you.”
 
If that doesn’t sum up how most of us feel about our pets, I don’t know what does!
 
Wild thing, I think I love you - even though you chewed up my shoes, or got muddy paw prints all over the floor, or got excited and jumped on the curtains and knocked them down.
 
Wild thing, I think I love you when you look at me with those loving eyes, or when you sing me a pretty song, or when you do something cute and endearing.
 
This tiger is funny and silly, but it introduces our sermon today in a fun way, and it is a gentle reminder that we are called to be caring and respectful toward all of God’s living, created beings.
 
The Message

Those of you who know some of my story before I moved to Calgary know that in my previous life - and at this point it truly does feel like a completely different life - I owned a dog daycare and boarding facility where I also worked with people to help train their dogs.

And while my expertise was in dog behaviour specifically, I have been surrounded by animal lovers of all kinds for a very long time.

I have shared my life with cats, dogs, hamsters, fish, frogs, a rabbit, turtles and a variety of other beings over the years.

I know the level of attachment that can occur when we are caring for one of God’s creatures.

I know the heartache when we lose one of our best friends - a being that we cared for, spent time with, and loved.

I know that there are times when it feels like our pets are the only ones in the world who truly understand us or will listen without judgement.

We have come to know the spirits of the animals we share our lives with on a deep level, and many people that I have talked with and worked with over the years will attest to a deep and unexplainable connection with their pets.

Likewise, there are many people who lean on the power of spiritual connection with wild animals.

There are books and resources available to help us understand our spirit animals, and indigenous people for generations have understood the connection between humans, animals, and the environment.

I cannot imagine that these relationships and connections with animals were not divinely inspired or created by and through God.

We have been placed here on earth to care for God’s creation in all its forms, including other humans.

But for those of us who share our lives with animals, we also know that God must have created animals to care for us as well.

Certainly, animals across the globe are bred to feed humans and nourish us, and that is a form of care.

Since the beginning of human existence, animals have worked with humans to help with agriculture, food acquisition, search and rescue, safety and protection, sniffing out specific odours, and of course deep companionship.

When we lose an animal that has been an important part of our lives, we grieve just like we might grieve over the loss of a family member or friend.

When I first began my ordination conversations with the committee that would ultimately decide if I was ordination material, one of the things I talked a lot about was the spiritual connection I have to my dogs.

The first dog I shared my life with who was mine and not a family dog walked with me on my journey through life in ways that I couldn’t even truly begin to appreciate at the time.

His name was Kodiak, and he moved into a new dwelling every single year of his 7-year long life with me.
He journeyed with me as I learned how to become a dog trainer.

He graciously allowed me to make a boatload of mistakes in his training and his care, and he still ended up being an incredible dog.

He began my journey into understanding dog behaviour and learning theory.

And, my journey with him led me down the path toward pastoral care and care for people in ways that I could not imagine had I not learned those skills through my experience with him and working with people who were deeply connected to their animals.

During my ordination process, I mentioned several times the importance of not just my connection with my own animals, but what I saw with my clients and their connection to their animals.

Over and over again, in my life and in the lives of everyone I worked with, I saw people connect with their animals in ways that can only be described as spiritual.

People would tell me how their animals helped them through so many difficult situations, and they would express deep and profound grief when they thought about losing their animals.

I am convinced that incorporating animals into our spiritual life is essential for many people.

In the book A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L’Engle, a deeply Christian author, she writes about the main character’s connection with the dog Ananda.

The main character connects with Ananda through a simple touch, and the dog helps her connect spiritually to her brother who is off in another time period fighting to save the world she is in from destruction.

This spiritual and Godly connection with animals is a theme throughout literature, but it is also a theme throughout the Bible.

I have an entire book which references all of the animals mentioned in scripture.

Today, for example, we heard two different passages out of the many that include references to animals.

I preached a few months ago about Job, and when I gave that sermon, I summarized the entire book of Job.

The scripture we heard today is one of God’s responses to Job’s complaining heart.

God asks Job if Job wants to be the one doing God’s job.

God reminds Job that the world is complex, that living beings all have their own sense of autonomy and decisions they make both with regard to their survival and with regard to their own pleasure and happiness.

Job’s suffering is not the only thing happening in the world at that moment, and there are other beings that God is also responsible for.

God understands creation in ways that Job, and by extension all of us, could never fully understand.

When people try to explain their connection to their animals, they often have difficulty describing it.

Many people will describe their relationship with their pets as similar to that of their children.

But there is often something even deeper at play.

I think it has to do with the fact that we learn to communicate with beings that cannot communicate with us verbally.

We have to develop a much deeper connection with them in order to understand each other. In my formerly professional opinion, it is not all about giving commands and ordering our pets around.

Humans create meaningful connection with their pets that goes beyond an owner/subordinate relationship.

There is a deep and profound spirituality that comes when we discover this ability to communicate with our pets.

For example, I recently discovered without doing any training at all with my dog Kanyon, that he understood a new cue from me that I had never taught him.

He sleeps on the bed with me, and I have a big body pillow down the middle of the bed so that he doesn’t push me off the bed.

Sometimes, before I get into bed at night, I find him lying on my side of the bed.

I used to kick him off the bed and let him get back onto his side of the bed on his own.

However, one night, I just said to him, “switch sides buddy” and made a circle gesture to indicate I needed him to move over to the other side of the pillow.

To my complete surprise, he got up and moved over to the other side of the pillow.

At first I thought perhaps it was just a fluke.

But, the next time it happened, I did the same thing, and he moved.

Now, almost every night, we do the same thing, and he consistently moves without me ever having taught him a cue.

This happened because of the nature of our relationship, and the spiritual connection we have that allows us to communicate with one another despite the fact that we will never share a common verbal language.

I could talk all day about the connection we share with our animals so if that’s something you’re interested in, grab me after worship.

But, I will spare you for now, and leave you with this final word.

May you lean into your relationship with your animals, if you have pets living in your home with you.

And, if you do not have animals in your home, I invite you to explore the possibility of connection to animals outside of your home.

For example, appreciating the birds singing in the trees, the squirrels jumping from branch to branch, the deer peacefully eating along the side of the road, the coyote playfully hunting mice in the fields, or any other opportunity you might have to experience a connection with God’s creatures.

As you do so, take the time to thank God for all of the ways these animals help us and guide us along our spiritual path.

May God’s creatures be a blessing to you in a myriad of ways. Amen.

Let us pray:

Holy God, we thank you for the gift of animals in our lives. Through all of the creatures you have placed on earth, you have brought many blessings and opportunities. Today we pause to name our gratitude for the living beings we share our lives with in a variety of different ways.
​
Thank you, God, for the love and compassion we hold and the opportunity we have been given to be stewards of your magnificent creation. Amen.

​The Message

Today, the Moravian Church celebrates the “Moravian Day of Service.”

This annual celebration can be honoured in a variety of ways.

Some churches will hold a short blessing service followed by different opportunities to go out into the community and serve their neighbours.

Some churches will not hold worship services at all and instead will encourage or organize mission work with another organization which serves people where they are at.

Some churches will hold a regular worship service but then have opportunities to serve one another within the walls of the church – writing cards to those who cannot attend worship, organizing and cleaning the spaces used within the church, etc.

Because I have only been here for just over a year, and admittedly because I was just on vacation and did not have the time to think through service opportunities outside of our church, I did not organize anything for us to do today.

However, I absolutely still think we can celebrate the Day of Service.

That said, I don’t see this as one day during which we should be serving, and then forgetting about it for the rest of the year.

Instead, I think today can be an opportunity to celebrate all of the ministry and service we do throughout the year here at Good Shepherd.

I have often heard over the last year from many different people about all of the ministries that Good Shepherd used to offer.

Many of those events and ministries fell off the radar during COVID.

COVID of course made it difficult to do big events together because of the need to socially distance.

Dropping many of the ministries we used to offer during that time also made it very hard to start them again – partly because people were slow and cautious about gathering, and partly because people just didn’t seem to have the energy for them anymore.

And, since arriving here, I can hear the nostalgia and a bit of sadness in people’s voices when they talk about the things we used to do here.

I can also hear the pride and excitement as people share what some of those ministries used to be, how they felt, and how they served the community.

I think sometimes church members can feel disappointed in themselves when they see the evolution of their ministry offerings, and when they can see how many things they used to do that they no longer are physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually able to offer.

But, I don’t see these changes as failures or disappointments.

I see it as a necessary part of the life-cycle of any organization.

We cannot possibly expect that offering the exact same ministries forever is the best way to serve our communities, ourselves, or God.

People change. Communities change. We change.

We still do so many things that we can and should be proud of at this church.

I spent some time this week going through my work log since I arrived at Good Shepherd.

In doing that, I came up with a lengthy list of ministries and services we offer here, and in honour of the Moravian Day of Service, I would like to acknowledge them.

The list is long, and it is something we should be proud of.

Here are many of the ways that the people of Good Shepherd are serving.

Some of these ministries are internal, and some are external.

And much of what we do as a community allows our members to take their loving and serving hearts out into their communities to serve, not necessarily as representatives of Good Shepherd Church, but as representatives of God’s love for neighbour and community.

It should be mentioned that this list is probably not exhaustive, so if I’ve forgotten anything, please know that it was not intentional.

It is also worth mentioning that I have grouped things together in ways that I think make the most sense, but it may be that some of these ministries could be in more than one category, or don’t quite fit into the category I chose but I couldn’t find a better option.
​
In a nutshell, I am not perfect, so forgive me in advance if I have made any mistakes. ☺ 

​As you can hopefully see, we do incredible work together. Some of what we do serves this immediate community, but much of what we do serves the wider community – not just the communities in which the church sits, but the wider Calgary community as well as the wider Moravian Church.
We are an amazing group of people doing amazing work on behalf of God, and that is worth celebrating! Give ourselves a round of applause!
I am not sure how many of you are aware, but each year on or around September 16th, pastors in the Moravian Church gather in our local areas to celebrate Cup of Covenant.
This is not just a celebration of past ministry, but it is an opportunity to re-commit to doing ministry for another year.
In the Canadian district, because Edmonton and Calgary are so far apart, we gather annually to do a retreat together to celebrate Cup of Covenant.
This retreat just happened this past week.
We gathered together and recommitted ourselves to ministry for another year, sharing our joys and the griefs and sorrows we have each experienced over the last year, and sharing our hopes for the upcoming year in ministry.
Then, we solidified our covenant with one another through a sharing of Holy Communion – a receiving of God’s grace and God’s steadfast love for us as we prepared for another year of ministry.
In a few minutes, we will be celebrating Holy Communion together here.
I would like to suggest that on this day when we celebrate our mission and service together, that we re-commit to another year of ministry.
The beauty of the Moravian way of celebrating Holy Communion is that we all partake of eating the bread of life and drinking the blood of Christ together, as one.
May we receive God’s grace, as usual, but may we also re-commit to God’s call to service and ministry to each other, to our neighbours, to our communities, and to the world.
May we remember our purpose for being a church, may we celebrate the amazing work that we do together in service to God and in the footsteps of our Saviour, Jesus Christ.
May we leave the sanctuary today, in unity and with renewed dedication to our mission. Amen.
Let us pray: Gracious and Loving God, we are so grateful for the events in each of our lives that ultimately brought us together to be a church. We could not possibly do all that we do, serve the people we serve, or love each other as deeply without your blessing or your guidance. We a grateful for all that we continue to be able to do together as a community, and we pray that you would continue to lead us in service to each other and to those around us. We pray all of this in your Holy name. Amen.

​The Message

We are faced with the task of decision-making all day, every day.

Often, the decisions we need to make are small or seemingly insignificant – choosing what outfit to wear for the day, which shoes are best going to meet my needs today, will coffee or tea get me off to a better start, should I have a bran muffin or yogurt for breakfast – the list goes on and on.

And of course, sometimes the decisions we are faced with are much harder, and some could take days, weeks, months, or even years.

Something like a high school student choosing what universities to apply to, or deciding with your spouse whether or not to replace that old rusted vehicle (and then, what to replace it with), or deciding whether or not to downsize and move into a smaller house.

Sometimes, these decisions can loom over our heads and cloud our judgement about other things.

And then, there are times when we have to wake up every day and choose to commit our lives to something – a change in habits, a partner, a healthier lifestyle, or even our faith.

Some of you who participated in the Going Deeper studies previously were at the session where I showed a clip of Craig Ferguson, a late night talk show host, talking about his struggles with addiction to alcohol.

I won’t show the clip here because it’s a bit “not suitable for church,” but he makes a point that I thought was valuable to share, both in the context of that discussion, but also in the context of today’s scripture passage.

He shared the story of how he realized he had a drinking problem and needed help, and as is often the case in these situations, he had hit absolute rock bottom.

He shared what was very likely a very embarrassing story that probably made him feel quite a bit of shame.

But, in sharing that story, he was able to relate to everyone who has been in similar situations.

And he concluded his story by sharing that he’d now been sober for many years, but he still had to wake up every single day and recommit to sobriety.

He would find himself thinking, even so many years later, that maybe he could have just one drink.

But every day, he had to remind himself that he could not allow that to happen.

He had to renew his commitment to sobriety over and over again, every single day, probably for the rest of his life.
And, he admitted that wasn’t always easy.

And decisions like that – decisions that could forever alter our lives – are never easy.

Similarly, I have gone through many periods in my life where I have been trying to lose weight and maintain an active and healthy lifestyle.

And it is never easy.

I know, logically, that in order to create long-term, sustained change, I have to wake up every day and choose to stay on track.

And yet, I have repeatedly fallen off track many times throughout my life.

Even though I know what needs to happen - even though I know I have to reduce or eliminate unhealthy food in my house and I have to stick to an exercise plan and I have to eat out less, etc – I often find that it is just easier said than done.

I am sure there are other situations that are relatable – for example, if you are partnered, you have to wake up every day and choose your partner over and over again, even when life has gotten difficult or things are rocky between you.

I think most of us have experienced something like this in our lifetimes, and many of us have something that we need to recommit to every day.

So, now that we can hopefully think of a relatable experience, it may be easier to put ourselves into the shoes of the disciples and the followers of Jesus.

Jesus has just put his followers and his core disciples at a crossroads.

Last week, we read the passage just before today’s in which Jesus told the group that was following him that whoever eats his flesh and drinks his blood abides in him, and he in the person.

That is a really difficult concept to stomach, especially if it’s the first time you’ve heard it!

And, it appears many of his followers took this literally and couldn’t understand how eating the flesh of Jesus would bring them closer to God.

I can understand their concern!

Of course, we understand today that Jesus meant this to be symbolic.

Nonetheless, we heard Jesus’ followers in today’s passage complaining “this is too hard for anyone to understand.”

In other words, they’re saying this is too difficult, and they are at a point where they need to decide whether or not to keep following Jesus.

Like some of the other examples I gave earlier, making the choice for God and all that God offers is not easy, and it isn’t a choice that’s made only once.

Choosing God doesn’t just happen in one single moment, in one day, or for one month or one year. Choosing God is a lifetime commitment.

It is an important reminder that faith is not easy.

Jesus tells the people that to believe in him, to trust in him, means they must “abide” in him.

They must stay, even though it is a hard path to follow and many lose their way.

Even some of those followers who were among the first choose to turn away at this point.

This just shows us that making the choice for God isn’t something we can do once, when it seems fun and easy to follow this guy named Jesus around.

We must choose to follow God, and follow Jesus, every single day our whole life long.

We must abide.

Anything worthwhile requires abiding.

Quitting drinking or smoking, losing weight, maintaining a healthier lifestyle, committing to an educational program or career path, training for an athletic event – it all requires commitment – abiding.

And, like I have done several times, no matter how committed we are, many of us will make mistakes or get off track.
Sometimes, our failures cannot be overcome.

However, when it comes to faith, making a mistake or making a wrong choice is not the end of the story.

John’s Gospel and this passage reminds us that we always have a choice.

We can choose to look up at Jesus, or we can turn away.

We can choose to accept or reject the challenge and the promise of the cross and what Peter calls the “words of eternal life” that are always calling to us.

Making the choice to follow Jesus is not always easy, and is not a decision we make once and never think about again.
It is an ongoing, daily decision we must make.

And, as I conclude today’s message, I leave you with some questions for pondering.

What might our lives look like if we claimed the promise of the cross every single day?

What if we were no longer afraid of difficult teachings?

What if we were no longer afraid of people who think or act differently than us?

Would we treat other people with more dignity and grace?

Might we allow others to change us for the better?

May we, together, commit to abiding in Jesus, hour after hour, day after day, year after year, for our entire lives.

Amen.

Let us pray:
​
God of patience, we come before you today in gratitude for your love and care. We ask that you help us to continue to choose to abide in you, day after day for the rest of our lives. Even though sometimes life can be difficult and we can lose our way, we ask that you help us choose to turn to you - to turn to the promise of the cross and trust in your guidance and help. All of this we pray today in your name. Amen.

​Young at Heart Message
 
Today I chose to preach on Proverbs rather than the Gospel because I think today’s passage from Proverbs offers us some wonderful insights.
 
The passage is essentially a personification of Lady Wisdom.
 
She invites the young and the foolish to eat and drink at her table so they might gain understanding and live better lives.
 
This method of teaching wisdom to young people seems highly effective!
 
I was young once – believe me, I know how effective a free meal can be at getting the young to be a captive audience so that a message can be conveyed.
 
Now of course, this can be a good thing or a bad thing. But for the sake of this passage, I would argue it is a good thing.
 
The entire aim of the wisdom literature in the Bible – of which Proverbs is the quintessential example – is to teach [young] people how to live with wisdom and integrity, and how to live the “good life” in the best sense of that term.
 
But of course, the way we tend to think of “the good life” today is very different than what the writers of wisdom literature viewed as the good life.
 
I don’t know if any of you remember these, but Maserati used to have an ad that looked like this:

​The implication of course is that the key to an extraordinary life is owning a luxury vehicle.
 
This notion that owning nice things, having money, or “keeping up with the Joneses” is the way we measure and achieve having a “good life” is a cultural phenomenon that has plagued humanity for a very long time.
 
And yet, most of us don’t question it, really. We strive to earn more, save more, buy nicer things, own nicer homes, own nicer cars, take expensive vacations… the list goes on and on.
 
And, when people can’t achieve these things, they fall into the trap of longing for a life they simply cannot support.
 
People go into debt trying to keep up with cultural expectations that having more and better things is the key to the good life.
 
While this might seem a ridiculous way to live, we are subconsciously receiving messages regularly that tell us that this way of living is the only way to truly have a good life.
 
So even if we know intuitively that this isn’t true, it is hard not to succumb to the cultural implications that not having the nicest things makes us some kind of failure as human beings.
 
Our worth, of course, doesn’t stem at all from the things we own, the money we have, the way we look, the people we know, or any other arbitrary thing we use to measure status in society.
 
And yet, it is hard for us to break out of that way of thinking.
 
I’ll give you a quick example.
 
I feel like I live a fairly modest lifestyle.
 
Of course, I wish I had more money – I long to save more, I wouldn’t mind replacing some of the things I own, I might like to buy new furniture, etc.
 
But, when I think back to the years I spent in university and shortly after graduating, I made next to nothing.
 
I was close enough to the poverty level that I considered applying for assistance, though I think I was just over the limit so likely wouldn’t have been accepted anyway.
 
But I survived (even though, looking back, I have no idea how I survived)!
 
I would have been thrilled to make the income I make today!
 
And yet, today, I still long for more.
 
It almost seems that the more we earn, the more we long for more.
 
When I was barely getting by all those years ago, I just wanted things to be a little easier.
 
I didn’t want to be rich necessarily, but I wanted to be a little better off so that I didn’t have to worry as much about money.
 
Of course, I’ve since learned that it doesn’t matter how much you make – you always long for more.
 
The Message
 
So, is this desire to have more than we currently have actually allowing us to live a good life?
 
Is this culture of “keeping up with the Joneses” actually providing a good life?
 
Or do we end up always striving for more?
 
When we finally reach the next level – the level at which we think we will be happy – do we stop striving, or do we then want to get to the next level?
 
Lady Wisdom would sigh and say “hey, set aside this life of immaturity and always longing for more. Instead, join me at my table, rest, and walk in the way of insight.”
 
The writers of the wisdom texts could appreciate material prosperity, but they did not consider it life’s ultimate goal.
 
Instead, they urged their readers to live lives of virtue, integrity, honesty, hard work, and faithfulness.
 
There was a sense that they knew that when we get to the end, none of the “stuff” is going to matter anyway.
 
What will matter is how we lived, not what we achieved or what stuff we owned when we reach the finish line.
 
Living a life of virtue may not seem extraordinary in the way the Maserati ad would imply our lives need to be in order to be extraordinary.
 
However, a life of integrity, honesty, self-control, and faithfulness is extraordinary in the best sense of the word.
 
The person who puts into practice the teachings of the wisdom sages may become an example of a way of being in the world that is neither flashy nor attention-seeking, but is in fact noteworthy and, in its own way, quite remarkable.
 
People with such wisdom possess qualities that draw others to them in ways that material prosperity simply can’t.
 
The feast that Lady Wisdom invites us to is an invitation to a life of virtue and integrity, honesty and generosity.
 
By contrast, just a few verses further in this chapter, Folly issues an invitation to her own feast.
 
She uses the same exact words that Wisdom uses: “You who are simple, turn in here!”
 
Folly’s invitation is tempting to the young, the naïve, and those who are more concerned about material wealth and prosperity.
 
But, those who might be tempted aren’t aware that Folly’s feast consists of stolen water and the bread of secrecy.
 
Those who choose to accept Folly’s invitation aren’t aware they are “in the depths of Sheol” – in other words, they are on the path toward death.
 
Of course, Proverbs and the wisdom writers tend to speak in ways that seem a bit cryptic, admittedly.
 
What we can understand from this passage is that Wisdom’s feast is always available to us, and she will always call out to us to “walk in the way of insight.”
 
Even if we have occasionally been tempted by Folly’s feast, we can always accept Wisdom’s invitation.
 
What does that look like in a world where Folly’s invitation is accepted by more of us than we care to admit?
 
Well, it could look different for everyone, but perhaps it’s a meal together as a family or a small group of friends.
 
Perhaps it’s reading a book instead of watching a movie.
 
Perhaps it’s giving to a charity instead of buying that new outfit or a new car.
 
Maybe it’s telling someone you love them if it’s been too long.
 
Wisdom’s invitation is a call to be self-aware.
 
It is an opportunity to look at our lives and acknowledge the ways in which we have been living based on cultural influences rather than by Wisdom’s virtue.
 
She is not suggesting that we entirely set aside worldly comforts, necessarily.
 
She is simply suggesting that we aren’t living lives in which our sole purpose is to accumulate wealth, status, and “things.”
 
Whatever shape Wisdom’s feast takes in your life and in the lives of the people you love, may her feast be satisfying in the way that only real food and real bread can be.
 
May it nurture your soul and bear fruit in your life so that others might be sustained by that fruit.
 
And, may it teach you wisdom as you seek to walk in the way of Christian discipleship.
 
Amen.
 
Let us pray:
 
God of compassion, help us to see the ways in which our lives are good, and help us to break the cycle of always longing for more. Help us to live lives of virtue, and to share ourselves with others in ways that honour our own gifts, and the needs of other people. Help us to open our eyes to the good life as You would have our lives be, rather than as society might dictate for us. Grant to us Your grace and mercy in the name of Your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.

​Young at Heart Message
 
This morning, we’re going to do a little “thought experiment” related to anger.
 
I won’t ask you to say anything this time, but I’m going to lay out a couple scenarios and, when I ask you a few questions, I’ll ask you to just raise your hand in response.
 
Here is the first scenario:
 
Imagine that you are driving along the highway.
 
Someone driving faster than you approaches from behind. They move over into the left lane to pass you.
 
But then, after they’ve passed you and moved back over into the right lane, they slow down by 20 kph.
 
This ticks you off – what was the point of passing you just to move back over into the right lane and slow down?
 
You feel angry, and you feel like this person deserves to know how angry you are.
 
So, you now pass them, and then immediately move over in front of them and tap your brakes.
 
That should show them!
 
You open your window and flip them the bird as well for good measure.
 
Raise your hand if you think you’re justified in your anger over this situation. Maybe you don’t agree with the response, but are you justified in being angry?
 
OK, now let’s put ourselves into the shoes of the other driver for a moment.
 
You are driving along the highway. The speed limit is 110 kph.
 
You approach, in the right lane, a person who is cruising along at 100 kph.
 
You have your cruise control set, and there’s no one in the left lane, so you move over to pass the person.
 
You pass them, and then you move over into the right lane after a respectable distance.
 
However, you see an upcoming speed reduction sign.
 
The speed limit has been reduced to 80 kph, so you slow down to accommodate the new speed.
 
All the sudden, the person that you passed a moment ago flies past you in the left lane, moves abruptly over in front of you into your lane, and taps their brakes, forcing you to slow down abruptly.
 
Then you see their arm fly out their window and flip you the bird.
 
Raise your hand if you feel angry about this scenario.
 
Thinking back to the first driver, raise your hand if your feelings have changed about whether or not you were justified in your anger.
 
Now raise your hand if you think the second driver is justified in their anger.
 
Now, imagine the first driver – the one who cut you off and slowed way down to get back at you – had a sign on their back window that said this:

​Raise your hand if this changes how you feel about their response.
 
OK, raise your hand now if this sign changes how you feel about their response:

Would you feel different about the first driver’s response if you found out that they had just received the news of the death of a close family member?
 
Lastly, would you feel any different about the first driver if you learned that they were Christian?
 
As I was researching for today’s sermon, I watched a few different Tedx Talks with people talking about anger.
 
What I learned was varied depending on the speaker, but one of the things that seemed to be consistent was that anger (whether justified or perceived) and how we cope with it very much depends on the mood we are in or the state of our mental and emotional health at the time.
 
And this makes complete sense to me, because most days I can brush off minor inconveniences.
 
BUT, on days when I’m already in a bad mood, every. Little. Thing. Can irritate me.
 
It also seems that things like stubbing your toe, banging your funny bone, or getting your belt loop stuck on something and pulling you backwards only happen when you’re already in a bad mood.
 
At least, we only notice them or get frustrated or angry about them when we are already in a bad mood.
​
The Message
 
Now, I will admit that it took me longer than usual to figure out how I wanted to handle today’s sermon, because it does feel as though, as a pastor, I shouldn’t admit that I get angry – and sometimes, I get angry about little things that really don’t matter.
 
But then I realized – why not? Anger happens to everyone. If you are human, you have the capacity to feel anger.
 
Now, that said, we also have the capacity to cope with anger and manage our anger, and most of us are reasonably good at it.
 
However, sometimes, managing anger or coping with anger can be more difficult than other times.
 
And, sometimes, we are so hurt and angered by a situation that we really struggle to get over it.
 
Perhaps we end up cutting someone out of our lives, or we end up letting that anger linger in the background for a very, very long time.
 
And, sometimes, our ability to cope with our anger ends up affecting the people around us. It can also end up affecting us negatively – perhaps by preventing us from opening ourselves up to others, or by simply causing us a lot of stress or anxiety over time.
 
Anger is a normal human emotion, and it serves a healthy purpose.
 
It tells us when someone has disrespected our boundaries.
 
It helps us recognize when we might need to distance ourselves from someone or something.
 
It might help us realize that we need a new job, or that we need to get out of a relationship.
 
So, when we are able to cope and manage our anger well, anger can serve us.
 
So why does Paul talk to the Ephesians about anger?
 
He starts by saying something that I think is incredibly important to understand:
 
He says, “We are part of the same body.”
 
This is a blatant reminder that we are all, first and foremost, human beings.
 
Regardless of where we come from, what our background is, what language we speak, or what we look like – we are all humans.
 
And, in the case of the Ephesians he’s writing to, they are all Christ-followers.
 
It sounds to me as though perhaps the Ephesians were struggling a bit with anger, or other hurtful behaviours or responses to one another.
 
So, this reminder that they are all part of the same body, I imagine, almost immediately caused the Ephesians to look around sheepishly at their neighbours and feel a little pang of guilt.
 
Now, the fact that they are all part of one body and that they are all Christ-followers doesn’t change the fact that they aren’t treating each other the way they are expected to.
 
Just like learning that the fact that the first driver in our thought experiment is a Christian doesn’t really change how we feel about the actions they took.
 
The reality is, we might even judge them a bit more harshly because their behaviour didn’t seem very Christian in the moment.
 
This is what Paul is trying to convey:
 
“Hey, you Epehsians! You claim to be Christians, but your behaviour doesn’t seem very Christ-like.”
 
So, he offers them a few reminders.
 
Tell one another the truth.
 
Also, don’t get so angry that you sin.
 
In other words, maybe don’t get so angry that you retaliate against someone else.
 
The scenario with the two drivers actually happened to me a while ago.
 
I was driver number 2, and while perhaps I wasn’t totally innocent in the scenario, I suspect that the other driver didn’t realize (or perhaps didn’t care) that the speed limit dropped.
 
Giving them the benefit of the doubt, if they didn’t realize the speed limit dropped, then it probably did seem like I was just slowing down to be unkind or a pain.
 
It may have seemed like I did it on purpose.
 
But, the other driver is really the one who was in the wrong, whether they knew it or perceived it that way or not.
 
I am confident that they felt justified in their anger.
 
And I am also confident that their anger was real - they really felt it inside of themselves.
 
And yet, they didn’t have the full picture.
 
It is possible that Paul can see a fuller picture than the Ephesians can – they might be too close to their situation to be able to see clearly.
 
So, maybe they need the reminder to take a step back and “stop being bitter and angry and mad at others.”
 
We all need that reminder from time to time.
 
But we also need the reminder to forgive others and give them the benefit of the doubt.
 
Especially because it just might be the case that we don’t have the full picture either.
 
Paul’s final words to the Ephesians reminds them to “let love be [their] guide. Christ loved us and offered his life for us as a sacrifice that pleases God.”
 
If we let love be our guide, do you think we would do something like cut someone off and flip them the bird while we drive?
 
If we let love be our guide, might we give others the benefit of the doubt, or at least be able to put ourselves in their shoes and *try* to understand their perspective?
 
We may not always agree, but if we are clouded by anger, it will be very difficult to see a situation from anything other than the very place we sit, which might not be the best vantage point to see the full picture.
 
Anger is an important emotion. I don’t think Paul is discounting that.
 
But I do think he is trying to give the Ephesians, and us, some guidance on how to better manage anger so that we don’t harm others as we work through it.
 
I don’t think he’s necessarily saying we should not address an issue if someone has done something to us to make us angry.
 
But I do think that he’s trying to tell us that instead of responding with a knee-jerk reaction, we should take a step back, if and when we can, to evaluate the situation and see it from the other person’s perspective.
 
Then, we can share our anger in a healthy way rather than in a way that simply retaliates on the other person.
 
Taking a minute to collect ourselves may prevent further damage to our relationships with others.
 
So, let us remember Paul’s words the next time feelings of anger bubble up in us, and, at the very least, try to take a moment before we respond.
 
In Paul’s words: “Do as God does. After all, you are his dear children. Let love be your guide.”
 
Amen.
 
Let us pray:
 
Bread of life, you taught us to put away bitterness and anger, and with tenderhearted kindness to share the fruit of our labor with the needy. Strengthen us by your grace, that in communion with you, we may forgive one another and live in love as Christ loved us. Amen.