Young at Heart Message

I’d like to start today’s message with an opportunity for storytelling.

The last time I had us take time to share stories and talk with one another, you all seemed to find that helpful and enjoyable so I thought we would try it again today.
​
I would like us to take 10 minutes to get together in groups of 4-5 people and be in conversation with each other.
 
The topic I would like you to discuss is this:
 
Name a person or people at Good Shepherd Church who made you feel welcome, cared for, or seen, and share what they did or said to make you feel that way.
 
If you are new here or visiting, or do not wish to share, it is OK to just listen to the other stories.
 
Make sure to give everyone who wishes to share a chance to do so.
 
By a show of hands, how many of you shared a story about another member of the church?
 
How many shared a story about a pastor of the church?
 
I would be shocked if the majority of you had shared a story about a pastor being that person who made you feel welcome, cared for, or seen.
 
The reason isn’t because pastors are inherently unfriendly or unwelcoming, of course.
 
The reason is because pastors come and go throughout the life of a church, but the church members are the ones who do so much of the work to care for one another over the course of years.
 
It is a stark reminder for all of us that what makes this church special, and what welcomes people here is all of you.
 
It is, in my opinion, the beauty of the church as a whole and the value of being part of a church community.
 
There is joy in being seen not just by church leadership, but by those familiar faces of “the crowd.”
 
Which is exactly what Jesus does for the bleeding woman who touches his clothes.
 
The Message

In today’s passage from the Gospel of Mark, we heard two stories: a story of healing, and a story of resurrection.

I want to talk about the story of the healing of the bleeding woman.

More specifically, I want to talk about the significance for this woman not just of being healed, but of being seen.
 
The passage tells us that this unnamed woman has been bleeding and in pain for 12 years.
 
It doesn’t tell us the cause of the bleeding, but it is a fair assumption that it likely has to do with a menstrual disorder or a pregnancy-related injury.
 
If this is indeed her injury, it likely makes her infertile.
 
Therefore, based on the ancient understandings of anatomy, menstruation, and ritual purity, her womb is no longer a source of life.
 
This is likely a cause for shame in her culture, and therefore, this woman has likely been cast aside by society.
 
Alternatively, she may have placed herself on the sidelines, out of sight and out of mind, if she held onto feelings of shame around her condition.
 
So, when she approaches Jesus to try to receive healing, she does so while trying not to be seen or noticed. She hopes to simply touch Jesus, receive healing, and fade back into the crowd.
 
But, what actually happens is that she is immediately cured, and Jesus notices her.
 
More accurately, he feels the energy she takes from him for her healing, and he turns to find out who touched his clothes.
 
Trembling with fear, she kneels before him to admit that it was her who touched him.
 
Jesus does not punish her as she fears he would. Instead, he tells her that she has been healed.
 
He publicly commends her faith and even goes so far as to call her “daughter.”
 
She enters the scene alone, in fear and in secrecy.
 
She departs the scene having been dignified and praised by Jesus, all while her neighbours witness.
 
This woman, who has most likely been cast aside for 12 years due to her ailment, now experiences the joy of being seen.
 
This passage is a good example of the need that humans have to be loved, cared for, and acknowledged.
 
And our storytelling earlier is a good example of the ways that churches and communities can provide that care and love and acknowledgement.
 
Many people walk into churches feeling like the bleeding woman.
 
Perhaps they are not literally bleeding, but many people enter churches with a feeling of brokenness – seeking something beyond themselves.
 
Many people desire to be seen – not necessarily in the limelight, but on a human level.
 
People want to be cared for, loved, noticed, and welcomed.
 
Through their uncertainty, their pain, and their brokenness, people simply want to be seen for who they truly are.
 
Jesus gives this woman so much more than physical healing – he gives her emotional and spiritual healing as well.
 
He creates an opportunity to demonstrate for the crowd “holistic healing” – he shows them what it looks like not just to heal her ailment, but to fulfill a basic human need that everyone has - to be seen and cared for beyond our physical bodies.
 
Jesus extends his love beyond what this woman ever expected.
 
And, many of the stories you all shared earlier have done something similar.
 
You have given each other that deep sense of holistic healing in the form of welcome, noticing, and acknowledgement.
 
You have loved and accepted one another, despite uncertainty, fear, pain, brokenness, or any other insecurities you may have had walking into a new church.
 
So, as we remember the story of the bleeding woman, may we also remember that while Jesus provides healing in many ways, we can provide similar healing to others, as well.
 
By seeing one another for who we are and loving each other, remembering the final words of the Moravian Motto - “In all things, love,” we can do for others what Jesus did for this woman.
 
The Good News of today’s message is this: You are loved. You are cared for. You are seen.
 
And, together, we are love. Amen.
 
Let us pray:
 
Creator God, we are so grateful that you sent your son Jesus Christ to show us how to love and care for others around us. We pray that you would continue to help us live our lives by the mantra “In all things, Love.” We are grateful for this church community that has been so welcoming and loving, allowing us to be seen for who we truly are, living into our true selves as you created us to be. In your holy name we pray. Amen.

Young at Heart Message

Today, we’re talking about the story of Job.

In the spirit of this story, I thought it might be helpful to illustrate the story using a parallel story.
​
So, I’d like to share a story written from the point of view of none other than Kanyon the Bernese Mountain Dog.
​
Here is a picture of him to put us into his story, and then I’ll let him take it from there:

I have an AMAZING life!
 
I am such a good boy, and I know this because my mom tells me every day.
 
I get two delicious meals a day, I have access to bones to chew on all the time, I get to walk around the neighbourhood and meet up with my friends almost every day, and I get to run off leash all the time.
 
I think I am a pretty wealthy dog, in terms of dog wealth anyway.
 
No amount is too much to pay for my dog food. At least, that’s what mom tells me.
 
I get to go to daycare sometimes, and honestly, someone always picks up after me when I use the “bathroom.” I mean come on – how many of you can say that?! You can’t get any richer than that!
 
I am so wealthy and my life is so good because I’m such a good boy – I listen to my mom (most of the time), and I never do anything bad (most of the time).
 
So, imagine my surprise when one day, mom picked up all the bones, and said I couldn’t have any food, and I couldn’t go play with my friends, and it rained on my head.
 
And then, to make matters worse, my mom took me to this place where they shaved the hair on my belly, put me to sleep, and when I woke up, I was sore and in pain and wearing this horrible plastic thing around my neck.
 
What on EARTH could I have done to deserve this?
 
I don’t think I did anything wrong, ever.
 
Mom always said I was a good boy. Did she lie?
 
Things didn’t get better when I got home. She still wouldn’t let me eat, or play with my friends, or chew my bone, or run around at all.
 
I couldn’t get comfortable because of the silly plastic thing around my neck.
 
On top of ALL of that, my nemesis came out of the closet, made loud noises, and sucked up all my hair that I worked so hard to dispense on the floor.
 
I asked my sister Lacey why I was getting treated so horribly, and why she was still allowed to eat, and chew, and go for walks.
 
She told me that I must have done something wrong for mom to treat me so poorly.
 
She guessed that I probably wasn’t as good of a boy as I thought I was.
 
WHAT?! I am such a good boy! I’ve always been a good boy. This just isn’t a reasonable answer.
 
Mom is just being mean to me for the sake of being mean. I know it.
 
In fact, I want to give mom a piece of my mind. I want to get her to answer for these crimes against me!
 
This isn’t right!
 
Lacey says I must have been a bad dog, but I don’t know how or when. I just don’t think it’s possible.
 
I cursed my mom over and over, howling about how awful she was being and how I didn’t deserve such treatment.
 
I’ve always been a good dog. I’ve never done anything wrong. Ever.
 
I don’t deserve this. Why doesn’t she just end this. My life is horrible and I don’t see a point in it.
 
I had a great life, and now I don’t. It’s awful. I can’t stand it anymore.
 
And then finally, mom answered my howls.
 
She told me that sometimes, life is bigger than what I know or could understand.
 
I wasn’t being punished for being a bad dog originally, but I was kind of being a bad dog now. I mean, I admittedly was blaming her for things that she says were out of her control.
 
It doesn’t seem that way to me though. It seems like she’s doing this to me intentionally.
 
But she says the world is bigger than me.
 
It’s not my fault, but it’s not her fault either, and there are things about the world that I just can’t understand.
 
So, I guess I should let her off the hook.
 
Maybe she doesn’t think I’m a bad dog. Maybe I just don’t understand why this had to happen to me.
 
Maybe, tomorrow will be a little better than today.
 
And maybe the next day, even a bit better.
 
And maybe mom does still love me, and wasn’t trying to be mean just for the sake of being mean.
 
I guess only time will tell.
 
The Message

If you couldn’t tell, Kanyon’s tale of misery and despair, from his perspective, was supposed to parallel to some extent the story of Job.

In preparation for today’s sermon, I actually read the entire book of Job.
​
The passage that we heard today was God’s response to Job, which comes only after 37 other chapters of lament, complaining, and arguments with Job’s friends.
 
In a long nutshell, here’s what happens in the book of Job:
 
Job's life starts out very well - he's wealthy, he’s honest inside and out, he’s a man of his word, totally devoted to God, and he hated evil with a passion.
 
He had 7 sons and 3 daughters, 7000 head of sheep, 3000 camels, 500 teams of oxen, 500 donkeys, and a huge staff of servants. He was the most influential man of the East!
 
After we learn this about Job, we see an interesting exchange happen between God and Satan.
 
God sings Job’s praises to Satan, and Satan responds by saying “well sure, but you pamper him like a pet, and you bless everything he does! He can’t lose!”
 
Satan bets that if God took everything away from Job, Job would end up cursing God. Essentially, Satan claims that Job is only good because he’s blessed.
 
So God tells Satan fine, take away everything Job has and see what happens.
 
Job responds to having all of his possessions and riches taken away by not sinning or blaming God.
 
So God tells Satan “see! He’s still good and still doesn’t sin or curse me!”
 
And Satan says yeah well, I bet if you took away his health too, he would curse you.
 
So God gives Satan permission to take away his health, but not kill him.
 
Now, I find this part of the story troubling, because it implies an indifferent God – a God who messes with people’s lives or tests them for his own amusement.
 
This doesn’t seem like something a loving God would do.
 
But, we have to keep in mind that the theological perspective at this time was that God micromanaged people’s lives.
 
So, in the prevailing worldview, this isn’t odd.
 
So, Satan strikes Job with horrible itchy sores that were oozing and uncomfortable.
 
And Job’s wife asks him why he doesn’t just curse God and be done with it.
 
I imagine that Job’s wife is suffering terribly at this point as well, considering the losses they have both experienced.
 
Job responds to her initially by saying “we take the good days from God, why not also the bad days.”
 
This seems like an odd response – it makes Job appear incredibly devoted to God initially, despite the terrible things that have happened to him.
 
But, he also hasn’t been dealing with the ailments for all that long yet.
 
At this point in the story, Job’s three friends come to join him, and they sit with him for 7 days and 7 nights in silence, until finally Job speaks.
 
And when Job speaks, he cries out, wondering what the point of life even is at this point.
 
The bulk of the rest of the Book of Job is Job arguing with his friends as they try to argue in various ways that he must have done something to deserve this treatment.
 
And Job keeps stubbornly responding to their arguments saying how awful they are treating him.
 
He also continually complains that he should be able to put God on trial to answer for these things that have happened to him.
 
Finally, we come to chapter 38. We read verses 1-11 today – the first time God directly responds to Job’s accusations.
 
And what we hear from God isn’t exactly a satisfying response if you put yourself in Job’s shoes.
 
The theology of the day is such that God directly intervenes in people’s lives.
 
So when God replies with more of a cosmological answer, we as readers feel perhaps a bit frustrated.
 
God essentially tells Job that he’s talking a lot about things he knows nothing about.
 
Then, God goes on to list a whole bunch of questions for Job, which begins to put things into perspective.
 
He asks first “where were you when I created the earth? Tell me, since you know so much!”
 
God asks a lot of questions like:
 
"Who do you suppose carves canyons for the downpours of rain," "Do you know the first thing about the sky's constellations and how they affect things on Earth?", "Can you teach the lioness to stalk her prey and satisfy the appetite of her cubs?”
 
Job responds and says he's ready to shut up and listen. God continues with more questions: "Do you presume to tell me what I'm doing wrong? Are you calling me a sinner so you can be a saint? I'll gladly step aside and hand things over to you - you can surely save yourself with no help from me!"
 
Job finally says "I'm convinced: You can do anything and everything. Nothing and no one can upset your plans.”
 
The story ends by God blessing Job once again and “restoring him.”
 
Whew! What a story!
 
As I briefly mentioned, this story evidenced the theology of the time - that God has total control over our lives and can bless us and take away our blessings on a whim.
 
Ultimately though, what this story is conveying is that God is so much vaster and more mysterious than we could ever understand.
 
Our human nature is rather selfish - we can only understand God in terms of how our own lives are affected.
 
This theological assumption that God blesses those who are good and righteous, and God punishes those who are sinful is problematic and closed-minded.
 
For example, Pat Robertson publicly announced that the earthquake in Haiti in 2010 was caused by the people of Haiti's "pact with the devil." 
 
This theology assigns moral blame for natural disasters.
 
It allows those who were not affected to believe that God somehow spared them because of their moral superiority, while the people of Haiti were being punished because of their sinfulness.
 
The story of Job in a lot of ways highlights this type of theology, so I can see where someone like Pat Robertson, who claims to read the Bible literally, might read this story and say "see, God punishes those who are sinful and blesses those who are righteous.”
 
But, we have to remember that this story was written and shared in a time and place when humanity's understanding of the world and of God was very different.
 
This story happened well before Jesus was sent to humanity. Jesus teaches a theology that is very different than this - he offers grace and takes away this mentality that God is to blame for all things that happen to us - good or bad.

It is hard for me to believe, and therefore would be almost impossible to preach, that God works the way the people in Job's time thought God worked.
 
How could a loving God play with people's lives in the way described in Job?
 
God's response reflects the theology of the time, but the greater point God makes in the reply to Job is that we cannot possibly understand how God works in our world.
 
The story of Job is an attempt to understand something that is not understandable.
 
God created a world of intricacies in which our individual lives are part of a much larger, far more vast system - a small part of the grand cosmos of God's design.
 
It is not that our lives are insignificant, it is that our lives are part of something so much greater than ourselves.
 
Blaming God when bad things happen, or blaming our own sins, diminishes God to a being that micromanages everything, and reduces the impact of free will on our lives.
 
It's not that God doesn't care about us. God joins us in both our pain and our joy, and walks with us, and occasionally even carries us through the hard times.
 
God doesn't punish us in the way Job and others in this time period thought.
 
When we consider all of God's creation, and not just our own lives, we can see hope and joy in the way that all of creation is connected, and in the fact that we are connected to everyone and everything else in ways we could never fully comprehend.
 
And, no matter what we think, no matter what anyone says, God loves us and offers us grace through all of it. Amen.
 
Let us pray:
 
God of all Creation, sometimes the storms frighten us and we cry to you. Sometimes our challenges are great and we tremble. Sometimes the storms are around us, and sometimes they are within. Speak your word of peace to us, so that we may endure our storms and face our difficulties with peace and faith. We open our hearts to your grace.  Amen.
 
Prayer from Unfolding Light, https://unfoldinglight.net/2009/12/01/ot-12-pe-4/

Young at Heart Message

At the Winter Craft Sale this past year, I bought a cute little pinstriped glass skull with a cutting of a plant in it that had just started to grow roots.
​
I no longer have the glass skull, but the cutting looked a lot like this:

​In fact, I clipped this cutting on Friday in order to illustrate my sermon today, so this is a fresh cutting taken just a couple days ago.
 
Plants are quite incredible when you really think about it.
 
I know those of you who are gardeners may not be as impressed as I am, but let this black-thumbed person tell you about my journey with this little cutting from last year’s Winter Craft Sale.
 
I was pretty proud of myself that I kept the cutting alive, to be honest with you.
 
I did very little. More accurately, I did nothing except add water to the glass skull when it was getting low.
 
This little cutting kept growing roots despite what came close to plant neglect.
 
After several months – all winter and most of the spring – I started to notice that the little plant’s few leaves were falling off.
 
The roots had gotten to the point where they pretty much filled the little glass skull, but it had lost all but the top two leaves.
 
I also noticed, however, that it was sprouting tiny baby leaves just at the point where the stem stuck out of the water.
 
Now, knowing almost nothing about plants, I thought that maybe it was time I actually planted the little cutting in soil.
 
It seemed to me that the worst that could happen is… well, that it didn’t survive the move to soil.
 
So, I went and bought soil I thought might work. I figured I couldn’t go wrong with standard house plant soil.
 
On one of the first nice-ish spring days that we had – sometime in March or April – I decided to transfer the little cutting with all of its roots and its two little leaves to soil.
 
And I’m happy to report that today, just a few short months later, this is what my plant looks like:

When I read today’s scripture describing a person who simply scattered seeds on the ground and then did nothing else to cultivate them, I knew I had to share the story of my little plant.
 
This little plant survived my neglect and kept growing more and more roots despite me not paying any real attention to it.
 
But it thrived once I started taking a more active role in its care.
 
In our scripture reading today from the Gospel of Mark, we heard about someone who simply scattered seeds, but did not actively care for or cultivate those seeds.
 
And despite the neglect of the person who scattered the seeds, those seeds sprouted and grew.
 
But, I wonder what would have happened if the person who scattered the seeds would have helped them thrive?
 
The Message

Today’s parables from Jesus are notoriously difficult to preach, believe it or not.

It certainly seems like there should be some good metaphors to lean on from the passage.

And yet, it presents difficulty because the parables aren’t as clear as Jesus usually is.
​
He is talking about the Kingdom of God, a mystery in itself, using parables that don’t really seem to provide any more clarity to the concept.
 
And yet, we can still gain some insights from these stories.
 
What if the Kingdom of God was not some mysterious, far-off land of opportunity, but instead the world in which we live right here and now?
 
Would knowing this cause us to live our lives differently than we currently do?
 
It might be hard to believe that a world filled with broken people, sadness, despair, loneliness, and so many other difficult and challenging things could possibly be the Kingdom of God.
 
But, if God resides here with us, in the here and now, and sits with us through our painful times and our times of joy, then are we not in God’s Kingdom?
 
If God calls us to love our neighbours as we love ourselves, and to serve others in all that we do, then are we not doing our best to live out that call in God’s Kingdom?
 
If God is the creator of the world we see, touch, taste, smell, and hear, then would we not call this God’s Kingdom?
 
God’s presence and God’s rule happen here and now.
 
Jesus’ life and love came among us, not in some far-off, intangible, unattainable way, but in the grit and ground of this place on earth.
 
There are times in our lives when I think we are more like the cutting of this plant – with roots growing underneath, but little showing outwardly to the world.
 
And then there are times when we are more like the cared for plant, roots growing deep into fertile soil and leaves blossoming for all the world to see.
 
But in both of these times, God is right there with us, loving us when we only can muster two small leaves, and loving us when we are in full bloom.
 
There are times when we set aside the notion of God’s Kingdom in order to serve our own needs or to go our own way.
 
And, there are times when we are more aware of God’s presence and leadership in our lives.
 
And all of this reminds us to live our lives in expectation of God near us – God with us, among us, and within us.
 
This notion that we will only see and be in God’s Kingdom “someday” holds God at arm’s length.
 
It makes God feel distant – like a relative who lives halfway across the world.
 
But if we live as though we are already in God’s Kingdom – as though God is always with us in the here and now – then we never know when we might go from a small cutting that’s growing roots in preparation for being planted someday to a thriving, blooming plant that God has been cultivating and preparing to be fruitful.
 
This also allows us to live with hope for our place on earth.
 
Nowhere and no one on earth is beyond God’s unique and branching love.
 
No one is excluded from the Kingdom of God if we envision being in the Kingdom of God everyday, everywhere we go.
 
God created everything, and all of us, and God doesn’t give up on any little square of this earth.
 
And perhaps God is waiting for us to notice when a plant cutting, growing roots but not yet thriving, is ready to be transferred to fertile soil.
 
Perhaps God is waiting for us to take notice of God’s Kingdom in this time and this place.
 
Perhaps Jesus is telling us that whether we know it or not, whether we take active part or not, God’s Kingdom will continue to grow and expand not in some far-off, unattainable or unknowable place, but right here before our eyes, if we are willing to take notice.
 
If we are willing to put the effort in to cultivating the seeds that have been planted, perhaps God’s Kingdom will become knowable right where we are.
 
May we experience the joy and the hope of knowing that we are already in God’s Kingdom, and may we do our part to cultivate that Kingdom among the people we know and the parts of God’s creation that we individually care for.
 
May we hear this Good News and experience the Kingdom of God, the saving grace of Jesus Christ, and the expansive presence and love of the Holy Spirit in all that we do. Amen.
 
Let us pray:
 
Creator God, we have been planted and we have taken root, and we look to you to help us thrive. Thank you for being present with us through every moment - whether joyful or challenging. Help us to see and know that we are in Your Kingdom in this time and place, and remind us daily that You are right here with us. Remind us as we watch the sunset, or as we smell the lilacs in full bloom, or as we hug a loved one, or taste honey made by honey bees, or as we hear the birds singing in the crisp morning air. Remind us always of your vast love for us. Amen.

Young at Heart Message

Before we really dive into the message today, I want to take time to rest our bodies and spirits, and to rest in God’s loving embrace.

To do that, I want to try a short “embodiment practice” – a form of sacred movement that helps to unite mind, heart, and body to create a more balanced self.

This particular practice is very simple, and you can do it sitting down. Those of you attending Synod with me next weekend will get to do it again there.
 
We will begin by placing our hands over our hearts, or somewhere that is comfortable for each of us.
 
Then, we will do a silent breathing exercise together.
 
We will take a few deep breaths together.
 
When you breath in, say to yourself “God, Spirit, Jesus, Divine, Holy One… fill me with _____.”
 
Choose a positive energy word, or a virtue that you feel you could use more of. For example, courage, love, hope, joy, strength…
 
On your “out” breath, say to yourself “May I be open to letting go of _____.”
 
Choose something you feel like you might be holding on to that you would like to release. For example, anger, frustration, fear, uncertainty…
 
Let’s repeat this mantra to ourselves 3 times as we fall into a few moments of silence together. The phrases are on the screens as a reminder. Let’s begin.
 
In breath: “God, Spirit, Jesus, Divine, Holy One… fill me with _____.”
 
Out breath: “May I be open to letting go of _____.”
 
This is a practice I have encouraged people to use any time they need to because it is so simple and helps us to connect the mind, the body, and the spirit.
 
It is also a helpful reminder to be aware of our emotions and recognize when there might be some negative energy we could release, and when there might be some positive energy we would like to receive.
 
I invite you to remember the exercise and use it as often as you would like.
 
The Message

Today, we are talking about celebrating rest.

I had my monthly meeting with my Spiritual Director last week, and during that meeting, we were talking about self care and the ways I have been trying to create a better balance between my work life and my personal life.
​
My Spiritual Director and I have been working together for a couple years, so she knew me before I moved to Canada.
 
She is well aware of the lack of balance I had before I moved.
 
As we talked, I made a comment that went something like this:
 
I need to stay on top of making sure I have a good balance in my life so that I can avoid burning out as a pastor. If I burn out, I can no longer serve my congregation and I cannot bring my best self to my work. Too many pastors experience this, and I don’t want to be one of them.
 
To this, my Spiritual Director said, “I wonder what would happen if you reframed it a bit so that, instead of creating a healthy balance to avoid burnout, you are creating a healthy balance in order to thrive both in your work and your personal life?”
 
She just about blew my mind with that comment.
 
Every other pastor I know – in fact, nearly every other working person I know, especially those in “helping” fields, try to prioritize avoiding burnout.
 
It never occurred to me that merely avoiding burnout doesn’t necessarily mean I am caring for myself in ways that allow me to bring my best self to my work, and my best self to my personal life.
 
It doesn’t necessarily mean I am caring for myself in ways that allow me to consistently thrive.
 
It simply means I am avoiding that ledge that so many people fall off of into an abyss of misery as they head toward burning out in the work they do.
 
This conversation, and today’s scripture about Sabbath, seemed to collide for me as I prepared for today’s service.
 
The conversation with my Spiritual Director reminded me just how important rest is, and how much our bodies and brains need opportunities to recharge and refresh.
 
And today’s scripture is a reminder for all of us that holding to our convictions around rest and sabbath so tightly that we overlook the needs of others completely isn’t necessarily the right thing, either.
 
In today’s scripture, the Pharisees were giving Jesus a hard time because his disciples were picking grain on the Sabbath, and then Jesus healed a person on the Sabbath.
 
According to custom and what the Pharisees knew, working on the Sabbath was against the accepted rules and norms.
 
Jesus had to remind them that when there is someone in need in front of us, we are called to help them, even if it is supposed to be a rest day.
 
But, I also don’t think Jesus intends to imply that people should always work through their rest days, either.
 
Again, this is another example of balance.
 
If someone comes to him on the Sabbath and needs healing, he’s certainly not going to deny that person because it is the Sabbath.
 
But, Jesus does take time for himself, to be in prayer and to connect with God, and to rest.
 
So it begs the question for us then: how are we caring for ourselves and making sure we are getting the rest we need?
 
Rest might not always be physical rest.
 
For example, I know I am not the only one in this room right now who likes to stay busy.
 
Sometimes, resting the mind can mean doing something physical – gardening, hiking, or walking, for example.
 
Sometimes, rest can be a short and simple act of mindfulness amidst a busy day. The breathing exercise we did earlier is a great opportunity for a moment of rest during a time of busy-ness.
 
Rest allows us time to renew and refresh ourselves in whatever ways we might need in the moment.
 
There are perhaps times in our lives when something like attending church on Sunday doesn’t feel like rest or Sabbath.
 
Sometimes it feels like work!
 
So many people put a lot of work into making Sunday worship and fellowship time a success every week.
 
And yet, many of us consider Sunday a Sabbath day.
 
How do we reconcile this “work” we do to participate in Sunday worship with this notion of “rest” or “Sabbath?”
 
Perhaps looking at it the way Jesus does – as taking joy in serving others, even though it does involve a bit of work on our part is a good way to look at it.
 
What if we recognize it as a moment of spiritual rest, rather than work we are required to do earlier than we’d like on a Sunday morning?
 
Once again, when the opportunity to be with one another in worship and fellowship is reframed not as work, but as spiritual rest and renewal for our souls, it no longer feels like work.
 
I find this to be a helpful way of looking at Sunday mornings because, obviously, as a pastor I am working on Sundays.
 
And yet, Sunday mornings rarely feel like work for me, believe it or not.
 
Most of the hard work gets done earlier in the week, so all I have to do is bring my best self, and trust that God has helped me prepare the best I could.
 
I sincerely hope that those of you who also have work to do for Sunday mornings – setting up fellowship time, getting hymnals out for people, preparing and running the AV system, preparing and playing music for the day, counting offerings, cleaning up after fellowship time, and any other work that goes into Sunday mornings – are able to find spiritual rest in that “busy-ness” of the work that goes into Sunday morning services.
 
I hope that, like Jesus, there is a joy in doing the work to serve others.
 
As you leave here today, I encourage you to hold onto this notion of celebrating rest, and of maintaining a healthy balance of work and rest as a way to thrive and bring your best self both to your work and your personal life.
 
If we all are able to bring our best, well-rested selves to everything we do, suddenly we are able to help one another thrive in a world where many people feel they are merely surviving.
 
May we celebrate rest for our bodies, minds, and spirits in ways that help us thrive, both on our own and in community with one another.
 
Resting well allows us to serve well, to grow well, to learn well, to love well, and to be well.
 
May we be well in our souls. Amen.
 
Let us pray:
 
God of rest, thank you for helping us recognize when our bodies, minds, or spirits need renewal. We pray that you would guide us toward taking the time to rest in ways that will refresh us when we need to do that for ourselves. When we are overwhelmed by life, or anxious about something, or when we are simply overdoing it, help us remember to take the time we need for Sabbath. Help us to rest so that we can thrive, rather than merely survive. We pray all of this in your Holy name. Amen.

​Young at Heart Message
​
The title of my sermon today – “Understanding the Trinity” – is a bit of an oxymoron because using the word “understanding” and the word “Trinity” in the same sentence doesn’t really make much sense to most of us.

The Trinity is notoriously difficult, or perhaps even impossible, to understand!

There’s a humourous YouTube video that I pondered showing today, but if people aren’t pastors or theologians, it doesn’t make much sense.

But, in the video, two cartoon characters ask St. Patrick to explain the Trinity.
 
St. Patrick starts by telling them that there are three persons of the Trinity – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, yet there is only one God.
 
The two characters tell him that doesn’t make any sense, and ask him to provide some analogies.
 
So, St. Patrick tries to offer analogies to explain the Trinity, and each time he tries, the two characters tell him his analogy doesn’t work because of some theology heresy.
 
St. Patrick finally gets angry with the two characters, raises his voice, and says:
 
Fine! The Trinity is a mystery which cannot be comprehended by human reason but is understood only through faith and is best confessed in the words of the Athanasian Creed which states that we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in unity, neither confusing the persons nor dividing the substance that we are compelled by the Christian truth to confess that each distinct person is God and Lord, and that the Deity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is one, equal in glory, coequal in MAJESTY!
 
Here’s a picture of St. Patrick’s face as he says “MAJESTY!”

And the joke behind this short video, is that even Patrick’s frustrated explanation doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
 
And yet, the two characters seem to understand it perfectly.
 
So, let’s talk about the Trinity, and see what kind of understanding we can come to.
 
(The video can be found here, if you are curious: https://youtu.be/KQLfgaUoQCw?si=3HUGmtEvEcSsYYg5)
 
The Message
When I was a kid, many of you know that I was raised in the Catholic Church, but chose to leave the church and not confirm into it.
In high school, I went to a Catholic Mass at my grandmother’s church, and I remember distinctly asking the Priest after service why, if we believe in one God, are there three persons of the Trinity.
And the Priest smiled and simply said, “it’s a mystery.”
 
I have to say, that was not a satisfactory response, in my opinion, to my question.
 
Now, to be fair, that’s a hard question to answer after a service when there are a lot of people talking with you.
 
I know this now since I am a pastor and find answering theological questions difficult when I am busy doing other things.
 
That said, my question would have been difficult to answer even if we were sitting in his office and had plenty of time to discuss it.
 
Without leaning on academic sources to help explain the Trinity, it really is easiest to just say, “it’s a mystery we cannot fully comprehend.”
 
Now, that said, I don’t know if any of you caught it in St. Patrick’s final response, but he mentioned the Athanasian Creed.
 
I have to admit that in all of my seminary education, I had never heard of the Athanasian Creed.
 
So, I looked it up. And, I discovered that it seems to provide a bit better explanation for the Trinity than most average people could offer off the top of their head.
 
So, I want to share it with you all today. We won’t recite it together, but I’m going to read it out loud, and of course the words will also be on the screen.
 
Before I read it, it might be helpful to know that it was named after Athanasius, the champion of orthodoxy against Arian attacks on the doctrine of the Trinity.
 
(This is where the theological heresies mentioned in the video I referenced come into play, but that’s another sermon entirely.)
 
So, without further ado, here is the Athanasian Creed. It’s long, so try not to fall asleep. ☺ 
 
Whoever desires to be saved should above all hold to the catholic faith.
 
Anyone who does not keep it whole and unbroken will doubtless perish eternally.
 
Now this is the catholic faith:
 
That we worship one God in trinity and the trinity in unity, neither blending their persons nor dividing their essence.
 
For the person of the Father is a distinct person, the person of the Son is another, and that of the Holy Spirit still another. But the divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, their glory equal, their majesty coeternal.
 
What quality the Father has, the Son has, and the Holy Spirit has. The Father is uncreated, the Son is uncreated, the Holy Spirit is uncreated.
 
The Father is immeasurable, the Son is immeasurable, the Holy Spirit is immeasurable.
 
The Father is eternal, the Son is eternal, the Holy Spirit is eternal.
 
And yet there are not three eternal beings; there is but one eternal being. So too there are not three uncreated or immeasurable beings; there is but one uncreated and immeasurable being.
 
Similarly, the Father is almighty, the Son is almighty, the Holy Spirit is almighty. Yet there are not three almighty beings; there is but one almighty being.
 
Thus the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God. Yet there are not three gods; there is but one God.
 
Thus the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, the Holy Spirit is Lord. Yet there are not three lords; there is but one Lord.
 
Just as Christian truth compels us to confess each person individually as both God and Lord, so catholic religion forbids us to say that there are three gods or lords.
 
The Father was neither made nor created nor begotten from anyone. The Son was neither made nor created; he was begotten from the Father alone. The Holy Spirit was neither made nor created nor begotten; he proceeds from the Father and the Son.
 
Accordingly there is one Father, not three fathers; there is one Son, not three sons; there is one Holy Spirit, not three holy spirits.
 
Nothing in this trinity is before or after, nothing is greater or smaller; in their entirety the three persons are coeternal and coequal with each other.
 
So in everything, as was said earlier, we must worship their trinity in their unity and their unity in their trinity.
 
Anyone then who desires to be saved should think thus about the trinity.
 
But it is necessary for eternal salvation that one also believe in the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ faithfully.
 
Now this is the true faith:
 
That we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son, is both God and human, equally.
 
He is God from the essence of the Father, begotten before time; and he is human from the essence of his mother, born in time; completely God, completely human, with a rational soul and human flesh; equal to the Father as regards divinity, less than the Father as regards humanity.
 
Although he is God and human, yet Christ is not two, but one. He is one, however, not by his divinity being turned into flesh, but by God's taking humanity to himself. He is one, certainly not by the blending of his essence, but by the unity of his person. For just as one human is both rational soul and flesh, so too the one Christ is both God and human.
 
He suffered for our salvation; he descended to hell; he arose from the dead; he ascended to heaven; he is seated at the Father's right hand; from there he will come to judge the living and the dead. At his coming all people will arise bodily and give an accounting of their own deeds. Those who have done good will enter eternal life, and those who have done evil will enter eternal fire.
 
This is the catholic faith: one cannot be saved without believing it firmly and faithfully.
 
So…
 
Do we understand the Trinity better now?
 
I don’t know about you, but when I read that, I understand the individual words, but the concept overall is only understood if I don’t think too hard about it.
 
Part of the reason I chose to use portions of the Moravian liturgy for Trinity Sunday today is because I think it makes a little bit more sense.
 
We said the words “we acknowledge the profound mystery of your being, beyond our comprehension” earlier today.
 
When we talk about Moravian theology, we tend to lean into our “motto” – In essentials, unity; In non-essentials, liberty; In all things, love.
 
Part of the essential things we believe is in God the Father as Creator, Jesus Christ the Son as Redeemer, and the Holy Spirit as Sustainer or Sanctifier.
 
And for me, this is the easiest way to think about and understand the Trinity.
 
I think about the ways God manifests in my own life, and I believe that this is the only way our human minds can comprehend the mystery of the divine.
 
If I consider God as Creator, I understand the gift that God gave all of creation – the gift of life and sustenance, beauty, and majesty.
 
If I consider Jesus Christ, I understand the gift of Immanuel – God with us. Jesus walked with humanity to model the way to treat other beings, and then he sacrificed himself to redeem all of us.
 
And if I consider the Holy Spirit, I understand the gift of God’s presence in my life today – through every challenge, every heartache, and every joy.
 
So, regardless of how well we comprehend the mystery of the Trinity, at the very least we know how God works in our own lives.
 
And, perhaps that is all that we really need to understand. Amen.
 
I would like to end my sermon with a music video.
 
This song is called “We Believe” by a contemporary Christian group called Newsboys.
 
I like the song to celebrate the Trinity, but I also like the diversity and the representation of humanity in the video.
 
So, before we pray, enjoy the video. Feel free to sing along if you know the song, or if you catch on to the words as it plays.
 
https://youtu.be/WjZ01FcK0yk?si=t81g7HD_uX6vk4oM 
 
Let us pray:
 
God, Creator, for your glory shining forth in sky and sea, in the changing light on the hills, in the flight of birds, in the plants of the field, for the gift of life in all its fullness, we thank you.
 
Jesus, Redeemer, for blessing children, healing the sick, raising up the lowly, suffering the brokenness of the world in your own body that we might have fullness of life, we thank you.
 
Holy Spirit, Comforter, for breathing new hope and strength into our lives, breaking down barriers, drawing human beings together in love, resisting all that diminishes fullness of life, we thank you.
 
Holy Trinity, in all that we do and say and are, may we always choose life, for ourselves, and for our neighbours. Amen.
 
~ prayer posted on the Monthly Prayers page of the Christian Aid website. http://www.christianaid.org.uk/
​

Young at Heart Message

Has there ever been anything that other people have insisted exist, but you’ve never seen it, so you just aren’t convinced that it’s real?
​
For example, some people adamantly believe in the Sasquatch – aka Big Foot or the Yeti. 

​Of course, none of us have actually ever seen these things, and there’s little if any actual proof of them.
 
And yet, there are people who strongly believe they exist anyway.
 
There is something that I am convinced doesn’t actually exist in the wild, but Canadians everywhere will tell me they do.
 
Can you guess what it is?
 
Moose.

​I am utterly convinced that they don’t actually exist. I’ve seen moose in zoos, but even then, I wonder if they’re real.
 
I have traveled out to Montana more than 8 times, and I’ve stayed on a property where, every year, they tell me a mother and her baby walk through.
 
And I still have not seen them.
 
I’ve traveled throughout the western US where moose supposedly frequent, and nothing.
 
My sister and I just traveled to Jasper for a night, and we saw a bear walking along the highway…

​We saw several deer, and we also saw these baby crows hanging out in a nest in a canyon…

But, we still didn’t see a moose.
 
I’m further convinced by the fact that my colleague, Aaron, who moved up here several years ago now and serves Millwoods in Edmonton, has also never seen a moose.
 
It’s starting to feel like Canadians just tease those of us from the US by saying they’re real just to get us up here, and then we’re let down when we realize they don’t exist.
 
There are some things that one just feels like they need to experience themselves in order to fully understand the reality.
 
I think moose are just one of those things.
 
To me, they are the unicorns of Canada and unless I see one for myself, I simply can’t believe they exist.
 
Now, my irrational lack of belief in moose might seem silly, but there are plenty of people who aren’t convinced of the existence of the Holy Spirit either.
 
And, the Holy Spirit isn’t necessarily something that can be seen with the naked eye.
 
The Holy Spirit is a presence, a feeling, a knowing that is beyond explanation. So, it makes sense that it would be difficult for some people to believe the Holy Spirit is real.
 
The Message

Today is Pentecost – the commemoration of the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Mary, mother of Jesus and the Apostles of Jesus while they were in Jerusalem celebrating the Feast of Weeks, as described in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 2:1–31).
​
In the scripture reading we heard today, Jesus told his disciples that the Spirit would be sent to them, but it could not come to them until after he was gone.
 
And, I imagine the disciples were a little bit like “yeah, sure Jesus… we won’t believe it until we see it.”
 
Kind of like me when it comes to moose.
 
I won’t believe they exist until I see it with my own eyes, either.
 
And yet, there’s something to be said for believing something on faith, too.
 
Now I actually think it’s true that the disciples didn’t believe Jesus when he said he’d send the Spirit.
 
Or perhaps they did, but they had no idea what that experience would be like until it happened.
 
And then there’s the realization afterwards that the experience of “a noise from heaven like the sound of a mighty wind,” and “fiery tongues moving in all directions” was in fact the promise of the Holy Spirit that Jesus talked about.
 
Most of the people experiencing this were simply confused, and they even mistakenly thought people were drunk.
 
It wasn’t until Peter reminded them of the prophecy that people started to realize maybe this experience was what Jesus had promised.
 
It didn’t look anything like they expected, but it was happening right before their eyes nonetheless.
 
I have found my personal experience with the Holy Spirit to be rather mysterious and difficult to explain as well.
 
It certainly isn’t as obvious as the experience described in Acts, so I can understand why some people struggle to believe in the Holy Spirit because it isn’t typically something that can be detected with our standard senses.
 
I have had challenging times in my life, and I have also had times which required heavy discernment and decision-making.
 
And in those moments, I have struggled to see or hear or feel the Spirit guiding me.
 
When facing the challenge or the decision head-on, I have found it difficult to determine exactly where and how the Spirit is moving in my life.
 
I have experienced moments when I feel utterly alone – as though no one in the world will understand what I’m going through, and I have nowhere to turn.
 
But when I look back on those difficult times from a future point in time, I can far more easily see how the Spirit guided me through those challenges.
 
I couldn’t see it in the moment because I had been overcome by despair and the negative self-talk that tends to happen when we feel alone, or like the world is out to get us.
 
Part of the reason it can be harder for me to see the movement of the Spirit in the moment is because it doesn’t always look the way I expect it to look.
 
The way I expect things to work out is often not the way they actually work out.
 
So then I find myself wondering if the Spirit was really there, or if I muddled my way through it on my own, relying on what I would call “gut instincts” instead.
 
As I move forward in my faith journey and in life, I have learned to trust that even if I am not sure in the moment what path is the right path, the Holy Spirit is guiding and moving in my life.
 
For me, it isn’t about needing tangible proof that the Holy Spirit exists.
 
It’s about trusting that it exists despite not being able to see or feel or touch it.
 
So, perhaps I should also trust that moose really do exist?
 
I’d still like proof, but I suppose if I am going to stand here and tell you all that the Holy Spirit exists, I should also believe that moose exist based on the experiences of others.
 
And, there is something to be said for trusting in what we might call our “gut instincts” – perhaps that’s one of many ways the Holy Spirit speaks to us and guides us through our lives.
 
So, as you leave the sanctuary on this Day of Pentecost, may you feel the presence of the Holy Spirit moving in your life.
 
May you lean into the Holy Spirit as it moves and guides you throughout your day, and may you become aware of the ways the Spirit touches your life in small ways and in big ways. Amen.
 
Let us pray:
 
Holy One, For all of the ways you speak to us – in rushing wind, in dancing flames, in words we understand, and in all that transcends language, we give thanks.
 
Give us courage to speak your love, everywhere we go, to everyone we meet. Amen.
 
~ Prayer written by Joanna Harader, and posted on Practicing Families.  http://practicingfamilies.com/

Young at Heart Message

In preparation for today’s sermon, I was doing some research about love stories.

I came across a list of the greatest love stories in literature.

Can you guess what stories were on that list?
​
The number one love story of all time was Romeo and Juliet. No shocker there.

Next up? Pride and Prejudice.

​The Lord of the Rings made the list, believe it or not, for the love story between the elf, Arwen, and Aragorn.

​Then I found a list of “real life” love stories, which included mostly people from a looong time ago. But, Johnny Cash and June Carter made the list!

My dad would be thrilled that Johnny Cash made it into one of my sermons!
 
Do you notice anything about all of these pictures?
 
They pretty much all look the same, don’t they?
 
Lots of staring longingly into one another’s eyes with these deep, passionate looks about them.
 
I’m guessing in most real-life love stories, those looks are few and far between!
 
In all of my research (which, admittedly, was not that deep and I didn’t find any academic studies about the best love stories of all time), not one mentioned love stories in the Bible.
 
Perhaps this is because when we think of love stories, we think of popular love stories – mostly, fictional love stories.
 
Often, people long for their own love story.
 
And the stories we read in books or watch in movies are not realistic love stories. They are stories in which people fall in love, and then live happily ever after.
 
They forget to include the parts where the characters get annoyed with each other because one of them didn’t fold the towels properly, or because someone left the gas tank on empty and the other one is late for work.
 
They don’t think about all of the little stressors that come with actual relationships that can make real life feel more like a “tolerate each other” story versus an actual love story!
 
So, when we heard today’s scripture reading, I am guessing that “love story” wasn’t the first thing that came to mind!
 
And yet, that’s essentially what’s happening here. We are meeting Jesus in the middle of a love story.
 
The Message

​In the Gospel of John, Chapter 13, verse 23, it says “One of his disciples—the one whom Jesus loved—was reclining on his bosom.”
 
The narrator repeats this again a couple verses later.
 
In fact, throughout John 13-17, we hear an epic story gushing with love.
 
It begins when Jesus washes the feet of his disciples.
 
He says “I have loved you” three times over the course of chapter 13 and 15 – he says it in 13:23, 15:9, and 15:21).
 
He pours his heart out to his disciples on his last evening on earth, and this is where we see the disciple whom Jesus loved resting on his chest.
 
In today’s passage, we hear a tone of desperation as Jesus turns toward God and prays for his friends.
 
This particular passage almost sounds like a plea of desperation from Jesus as he begins to mourn the loss of his beloved friends as he prepares himself to leave them.
 
The prayer sounds like a request for God to continue to guide the disciples, but it’s as much a plea for Jesus’ own comfort throughout his preparation.
 
It reminds me of two different people I have known recently who have lost battles with cancer.
 
In both cases, the women fought long and hard, but ended up realizing they could not fight anymore.
 
And, in both cases, the women celebrated their lives before they passed with their friends and family.
 
And I wonder if they felt a bit like Jesus in this passage – a bit of panic as they realized they would be leaving behind the people they loved the most.
 
At our final Going Deeper study group this past Monday, we had a discussion about love.
 
How do we “love” people who have harmed us? How do we “love” people who have been very terrible people in their lifetime?
 
It’s hard to envision loving most people in the way that love is portrayed in the “greatest love stories of all time” that I mentioned earlier.
 
Very often in true love stories, there is an element of self-sacrifice on one or both people’s parts.
 
There are love stories that portray people who rather despise each other at first, but as they get to know each other and spend time together, they begin to experience love for one another in ways they never thought possible.
 
So what does love have to do with it? And, does love always look like passionate, emotional love like in Romeo and Juliet or Gone with the Wind?
 
Of course not. Love can be quite complex, and can go well beyond the emotional love we tend to think of when we talk about love.
 
The best example of this type of love I can come up with from my own life is this:
 
When I owned my business, I had a neighbour who caused all kinds of problems for me.
 
Mostly, he would complain about noise because of dogs barking.
 
He complained so much that I had to get a decibel meter set up and actually record the frequency and level of noise we were producing.
 
Loving my neighbour in the sense we typically think about love was not really possible for me, because I barely liked the guy, let alone loved him.
 
But, when a storm came through and blew his stuff all over our yards and the fields behind us, did I stand and laugh and tell him he deserved it?
 
Well, maybe in my head I did a little bit.
 
But then, I got out there and I helped him clean it all up.
 
And I think that this is the kind of love Jesus was trying to get at.
 
It’s not an emotion. It’s an action. This kind of love is different than what we typically think of, and it allows us to care for people, find compassion and kindness, but still hold them at arms length. It doesn’t require liking someone at all, if that’s too much to muster.
 
This love story is one of longing and of hope. We experience Jesus longing for this type of agape love, not just for himself, but for the world.
 
Jesus’ love proclaims the truth of the gospel and the truth about us: that we are the beloved of God, and through the examples Jesus provided us, we can know how to love deeper than what we’ve seen through books, TV, or movies.
 
This deepness, this richness of relationship requires a deeper intimacy than any real or fictional love story one could imagine.
 
It requires that we step out of our comfort zones, recognize people for the flawed humans that they are, and get to know them in ways that humanize them.
 
This helps us to better understand humanity, even if we don’t always agree with others.
 
When we bring another person’s humanity to the forefront of our minds, we can allow ourselves to love them, even if we might not particularly always like them.
 
This call to love others is what Jesus spends 5 chapters in the Gospel of John trying to convey to us.
 
It’s not about passionate, emotional love.
 
It’s about a deeper understanding and joy in humanity.
 
So, may we celebrate this love story as the greatest love story of all time - one that extends over two thousand years and meets us in this time and this place so we can continue to share it with others. Amen!
 
Let us pray:
 
God of compassion, we come before you with gratitude and humlity as we recognize that our human understanding of love is not always on par with your understanding of love. We pray that you would help us to learn to love others in the way Jesus showed us how to love. We know it is not always easy, and we know our human emotions can sometimes get in the way of the love we know you want us to demonstrate.
 
God, we pray that you would help us to better understand and behave in ways that are loving toward everyone we meet, even if we do not understand them. We also pray that we continue to see your example of love demonstrated throughout the scriptures to use a model as we interact with others.
 
May your endless wisdom guide us today and every day. In your holy name we pray, Amen.

The Message
When you think of the word “slave” or “servant,” I imagine that something fairly specific tends to come to mind.

The first thing that comes to mind for me is the images of slaves that I saw when I went on the Moravian Church’s racial justice pilgrimage to Montgomery, Alabama.
​
I see images of chained Africans crossing the Atlantic on ships in spaces that gave them enough room to stretch out, and that’s about it.
 
I see housekeepers and field workers, working until their bodies could quite literally not do anything more, but having to keep going because it was their only choice.
 
I see the images of slaves and servants we see portrayed in movies and media, who are not invited to the table despite their hunger, but instead are expected to prepare and serve the meal, and find their own sustenance after their masters have been cared for and fed.
 
I do not typically picture a servant or slave becoming friends with their master.
 
And yet, this is exactly what we see Jesus do in today’s scripture.
 
More accurately, we see Jesus talking not as master to servant, but as servant to servant.
 
Even though he says, “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead I have called you friends…”
 
Jesus is not putting himself above his disciples. Rather, he is speaking to them on the same level.
 
He is a servant of God, and he sees them as servants of God as well.
 
Jesus modeled servanthood in every way, and he called others to do the same.
 
Doing so resulted in him being harassed, persecuted, and eventually put to death, but he modeled it nonetheless.
 
We may need to consider letting go of the view of servanthood or slavery that we hold based on what we know of history’s definition of servanthood or slavery.
 
For some people, especially those in many of our favorite biblical stories, having the title of “slave” was a deep honour.
 
For example, Moses, Joshua, David, Paul, and James counted it as a privilege to be considered a slave of the Lord.
 
We have to remember that the disciples did not choose Jesus as their rabbi.
 
Jesus sought them out. Jesus called them to service.
 
For much of Jesus’ ministry, he taught, acted, and modeled the way he expected all of his followers to think and act.
 
So in some ways, they were apprentice-servants under Jesus’ guidance.
 
Now, in this passage, they receive this shocking news that they were being taken into a much deeper relationship with Jesus: he no longer considered them servants, but instead, he considered them friends.
 
Why? What did this mean in reality for the disciples?
 
Jesus would essentially be depending on his friends to be the hands and feet for the mission of God.
 
He reminds them, especially toward the final days of his ministry, that everything written about him in the Law of Moses and the prophecies had to be fulfilled.
 
Jesus spends much of his ministry teaching his disciples, passing on knowledge, and, in a lot of ways, encouraging them to step well outside of their comfort zones so that they could understand scriptures and the work he expected them to do through a missional lens.
 
He needed to help them understand that from the beginning to the end, the mission of God is the epic story they needed to be a part of.
 
They move from servants to friends of Jesus because Jesus doesn’t just need servants who follow orders blindly.
 
Jesus needs friends who feel equally as called to mission and service – friends who feel just as passionate and excited about their call as he does.
 
We understand that it is possible to be a servant without being a friend.
 
In fact, most people who are servants or slaves likely hold some kind of negative feelings toward the person or people they consider “masters.”
 
But, it is impossible to be a true friend and not be a servant.
 
Christ gave us a new command: to love each other as he loved us.
 
This theme is repeated so often in scripture that as a pastor, I sometimes feel like I’m preaching the same message over and over again – love each other.
 
Just love each other!
 
Love your neighbours as you love yourself!
 
God says to love one another!
 
Do you think Jesus thought this was an important command?
 
As the Father has loved us, so we will love.
 
As the Father sent Jesus, so he sends us as servant-friends to bear fruit.
 
I do believe it’s possible to serve others and love others without being friends with them.
 
We can serve people we have only just met, regardless of whether or not we will ever see them again.
 
But, we do not keep true friends for very long if we do not also set aside our own needs on occasion and serve their needs as well.
 
I have been in friendships with people who do not serve my needs well, and they do not last long.
 
It is not because I am selfish and only want to be friends with people who will serve me and only me.
 
It is because it doesn’t feel like mutual friendship if I am the only one serving.
 
It becomes exhausting, if you have never been in a relationship like that before.
 
I think this is what Jesus is getting at with his disciples.
 
He does not consider them merely servants, expecting them to serve him without their own needs being met.
 
He is telling them that as his friends, he serves them as much as they serve him.
 
He is modeling this love-in-action to them so that they can take that love and spread it to the world.
 
He is teaching them, just as they are trying to learn.
 
Jesus is in their service as much as they are in his service.
 
So, as you leave here today, I invite you to ask yourselves these questions:
 
Who are you servant-friending today?
 
How are you modeling Jesus’ command to love each other as he loved us?
 
May we all leave this place and go into the mission field ready to be friends and servants to those around us, modeling the love of Jesus outwardly to everyone we meet. Amen.
 
Let us pray:
 
God, we are grateful to have a friend in Jesus, and that we are more than merely servants. We ask that you continue to guide us in the direction you would have us go, helping us to servant-friend others in ways we may never have considered before. Help us to live out our faith in meaningful ways that honour your love for us and the model of care and compassion you gave us in your Son, Jesus Christ. We pray all of this in your Holy name. Amen.

Young at Heart Message

​The Ethiopian official in our last reading today answered Philip’s question by saying, “How can I understand unless someone helps me?”

How can we understand unless someone helps us?

In the context of our story, they are talking about understanding scripture.

But I think this question can apply to many aspects of life.
 
And, perhaps more importantly, how can we understand if we do not seek to understand in the first place?
 
I paired the reading in Acts with the reading in 1 John today because 1 John talks at length about loving each other.
 
“Love comes from God, and when we love each other, it shows we have been given new life.”
 
Loving each other is much easier to do when we understand each other.
 
But, how can we understand each other unless someone helps us?
 
So, with that in mind, I’d like to do something different this morning and spend about 10 minutes engaging with each other to seek to understand our neighbours a bit better.
 
I would like this exercise to involve a bit of moving around. Try to engage with people you may not know as well, rather than those you know very well.
 
The question options you can ask each other are:



1) Who is one person who had a significant impact on who you are today, and why?
 
2)What is one thing that has warmed your heart this week, and why?
 
Let’s take about 10 minutes, and try to visit with at least 2 different people.
 
Seek to understand with genuine curiosity. The question-asker should ask the question and then listen. Once the person sharing is done, switch.
 
I’ll set a timer for 10 minutes. Here are the questions again:
 
1) Who is one person who had a significant impact on who you are today, and why?
 
2) What is one thing that has warmed your heart this week, and why?
 
The Message
Did anyone learn anything about the people you talked to? You don’t have to share, just a show of hands.
Did this exercise feel difficult or uncomfortable?
The questions we asked each other had the potential to be deep or uncomfortable questions certainly, but they are still pretty surface-level questions.
 
I wonder what would happen if we sought to understand and love others, in all contexts, with genuine curiosity and joy?
 
This reading from Acts tells us as lot about the unnamed Ethiopian official, and about Philip.
 
Philip approaches this person not with arrogance or unsolicited advice.
 
Instead, he simply asks, do you understand what you are reading?
 
This opens the door for the Ethiopian official to respond however he feels most comfortable responding.
 
He could have said “oh yes, I understand everything perfectly, thank you for asking.”
 
But instead, he seeks knowledge and understanding, and he admits that he could not possibly understand what he was reading without help.
 
And Philip then gently guides the Ethiopian official toward better understanding, without judgment or assumptions.
 
It is a moment where both people demonstrate the concept of loving each other deeply that is expressed in the 1 John passage.
 
Truly working to love others sounds easy and ideal in theory, but in practice, it is much harder.
 
We often encounter people that we do not understand, and we can be afraid to try to better understand them, either because we are afraid to ask, or because we are afraid of their answer.
 
I will give you an example that I think many people have a hard time understanding about others, but I also think that it is important to talk about.
 
Younger generations are, in general, finding these topics to be quite natural and not nearly as taboo as many of us who are older have found them to be.
 
So, seeking to understand things that we were never exposed to growing up is an important part of learning and growing with others, and seeking to love and understand people more deeply.
 
So, my example is this:
 
When I was in seminary, I met a person who identified as gender fluid and non-binary – neither male nor female, but the person presented to the world as mostly female-appearing.
 
So, in theory, I wanted to show interest and care in learning more about this person’s world and perspective, but in practice, I really struggled initially to use the pronouns they/them to refer to this person.
 
And for me, it wasn’t because I didn’t want to try. I really did want to try to do better.
 
But, I had never met anyone who identified this way, so I had never had occasion to use pronouns other than he/she.
 
Luckily, this person was like Philip in our scripture reading today.
 
I was honest with them and I told them I had never met someone who used they/them pronouns, so it did not come naturally to me.
 
Essentially, I said “how can I understand unless someone helps me?”
 
And, graciously, they helped me to better understand, and they gave me opportunities to practice my fluency in using new pronouns.
 
And, I must tell you, I am so beyond grateful for this person, who, like Philip, was willing to help me understand.
 
I could have easily avoided them all together – I could have simply not engaged with them at all during my classes.
 
But I also recognized that in a changing world, my fear of feeling uncomfortable seeking to understand this person was not going to serve me well in a pastoral context.
 
Pastors interact with all kinds of people. We get the opportunity to seek to understand people in new and different ways.
 
I knew that if I did not sit in my own discomfort and seek to better understand eventually, and practice this radical love toward others, it would not be easy to learn outside of seminary.
 
And, I am so grateful for the opportunity I had, because I have since met many new people who identify as gender fluid and non-binary.
 
I’ve met adults my age who have explored their gender identity as adults, once they had vocabulary and support for the way they have always felt.
 
But, more recently, I have met a lot of kids – more than you might expect – who are exploring these questions at a much younger age. Questions that we never had the opportunity to even ask when we were growing up.
 
Had I not sought to understand when I did, I would still be uncomfortable with these conversations, and I would struggle to relate to any person – young or not – who has taken this journey of self-exploration of their gender.
 
So, the point in sharing this story is all to say that we may not always understand or agree with the way someone lives their life, but when we are called to love others, part of that call is to seek to better understand others.
 
We have opportunities every day – every time we interact with others – to seek to better understand them.
 
Just like Philip could have kept right on walking, or the Ethiopian leader could have declined help to understand, I could have ignored the opportunity I had to learn about someone who was different than me and different than anyone I had ever met.
 
But, the Ethiopian official would have missed his opportunity for baptism.
 
Philip would have missed an opportunity to do the work he was called to do with others.
 
I would have missed an opportunity to get to know an amazing human being, and to grow in my own journey toward loving and better understanding others.
 
Are we ever going to be perfect at loving others?
 
No, of course not. We all have our own biases to overcome.
 
But, if we can, at the very least, approach others with openness and a genuine curiosity to learn about them and understand their perspective, we may just learn something about ourselves in the process.
 
Once the desire to expand ourselves to know and accept other people is cultivated, all we really need to do is practice it and develop the tools and skills to become better at it.
 
But, if the desire isn’t there, it is far less likely to happen.
 
The example I shared today is only one example, but there are so many other examples of people who don’t meet our expectations, or who are different than we are.
 
So, may we open our hearts and minds and approach others with genuine curiosity that leads to love and deepening understanding.
 
As we walk our own paths to love and serve God and others, may we meet others where they are just as we hope they meet us where we are. Amen.
 
Let us pray:
 
God of wisdom and understanding, we ask that you help us to answer your call to love you and to love one another. You are indeed love, and as it says in 1 John, if we keep on loving others, we will stay one in our hearts with You, and You will stay one with us.
 
Continue to remind us, God, that loving you and loving others cannot be separated.
 
Help us to love others and seek to better understand others, even when it feels uncomfortable for us. Help us to grow and expand our minds and our hearts, lifting them to you as we open them to other people.
 
Lead us, guide us, and hear us when we ask, “How can we understand unless someone helps us?” Help us to better understand, God. Help us to love with all our hearts. Amen.

Young at Heart Message

In 1992, a movie with the following brief description, as quoted from IMDB (Internet Movie Database), was released:

​“When a nightclub singer is forced to take refuge from the mob in a convent, she ends up turning the convent choir into a soulful chorus complete with a Motown repertoire, until the sudden celebrity of the choir jeopardizes her identity.”
 
Does anyone know what movie this was?
 
The movie was Sister Act.
 
And yes, for those doing the math, it was released over 30 years ago.
 
Of course the movie was released for entertainment purposes, and probably doesn’t actually offer much in terms of true theological conversation.
 
But, at the same time, often movies, books, and other forms of entertainment can be a great launching point for theological or spiritual discussions.
 
So, insofar as it might relate to today’s scripture, I want to share a short clip from Sister Act with you all today.
 
Feel free to clap along or sing along if you feel so inspired. ☺ 
 
https://youtu.be/ctjG4MjJwEA?si=rOhtO9keLVS45roS 
 
What did you all notice in this clip? I have several observations but I’m curious if any of you noticed anything…
 
…
 
Here’s my list, and admittedly we could talk about any of these things as their own sermon:
 
1.   They tap into the individual skills and talents of these choir members, and lift one another up. They’re not in competition with each other, but they’re proud of each other when they do something they’ve never done before.
2.   The demographics of the people sitting in the pews do not in any way match the demographics of the neighbourhood outside of the church.
3.   When people start coming in off the street, the priest kindly waves them in as a form of welcome. I’m not sure the abbess, had she been looking, would have done the same.
 
There is probably much more we could say about this if we really dove in.
 
But today, I want to focus on this “shepherding” the priest does of these people walking in off the street, and in particular, this notion that there is another flock just outside the doors of the church that are needing someone to meet them where they’re at.
 
The Message
So, why bring Sister Act into this sermon at all?
Well, today’s scripture passages, and indeed the theme of every Fourth Sunday of Easter in the Revised Common Lectionary, are about Christ as the Good Shepherd.
And admittedly, it can be difficult for people to truly understand what it means to be a flock shepherd when we are so far removed from a world in which shepherds are required in the way people understood them in that time period.
 
Today’s scripture tells us, among other things, that Jesus has “other sheep that are not in this sheep pen.” He says, “I must also bring them together, when they hear my voice. Then there will be one flock of sheep and one shepherd.”
 
This resonated with me, and it’s why I thought of Sister Act as an example of this.
 
The church in Sister Act is half empty, first of all.
 
But, more to the point, the people who are in attendance appear to be mostly older adults, and when the scene cuts to the street outside of the church, the people inside do not at all match the demographics of those outside the church.
 
In other words, that priest is preaching to only a small flock, and there are sheep outside of the walls of the church that are not in that metaphorical pen.
 
It wasn’t until Whoopi Goldberg’s character came into the church – someone who came from a world more like the one outside the church than inside – that this sleepy church started to shepherd to those quite literally just outside the door.
 
So, when Jesus says he has other sheep not inside the pen, it’s possible that this is what he means.
 
Certainly in his context, he’s talking about gentiles in particular - those who are not Jewish. 
 
In today’s context, in order for us to keep up with the new people Jesus aims to bring in, we have to learn to inhabit different cultures and look at Christ in new ways.
 
Often the people who don’t belong to our own fold and hear Jesus’ voice in unfamiliar ways are the ones best able to help us hear it and understand it differently.
 
I think we see this within our own community, but we also see it in the world around us.
 
It requires us to open our minds and our hearts to others who may see the world differently.
 
In conversation with many of you, and with so many others who have a deep faith, I’ve discovered that a concern that many people of faith have is a concern for others – in particular their children or grandchildren – who do not appear to have the same beliefs or the same deep faith.
 
But often I wonder if faith just looks different for different people?
 
If Jesus sees and knows that there are people outside of the pen that he is called to shepherd to, I wonder if the same is true for us?
 
He doesn’t seem to indicate in any way that those outside of the pen are doomed or lost causes.
 
Instead, he seems to embrace them, love them, and shepherd to them by meeting them where they are - outside of the pen.
 
He does say he must bring them together, but he doesn’t say he would do that by necessarily bringing them into the pen.
 
Perhaps he’d do that by bringing those in the pen to those outside the pen?
 
If you watch the whole movie, the nuns in Sister Act actually do start getting outside of their church walls and ministering to those who live in the neighbourhood around the church.
 
The requirement isn’t that people must come inside in order to hear God’s message.
 
Instead, they go out and meet the people where they are – they serve the needs of the community, rather than expecting those in the community to come to them.
 
And that’s a huge shift for this little convent.
 
But it makes an even bigger difference to those outside of the church.
 
If we truly believe that Jesus works in us, through us, and around us, then we also have to accept that is true for other people too.
 
Jesus may be working in other people in ways that look very different than the ways Jesus works in us.
 
And that’s because Jesus meets people where they are – whether that’s in the church or outside of it.
 
Jesus goes to his flock. He seeks people out – even those who are in the depths of despair or hopelessness, or those who seem lost or unsure.
 
And this should bring us comfort.
 
Just because we find a connection with Jesus through a faithful church experience does not mean that is where Jesus meets everyone else.
 
Jesus meets us all where we’re at.
 
And, we are called to meet others where they are at, too. We are called to love and serve God, and we can do that by loving and serving others.
 
So, may we learn to meet others where they are at on their faith journeys, wherever that may be.
 
May we expand our hearts and our ideas of faith and service to others to include those outside the pen.
 
May we seek out those who are different from us with inquisitive hearts and minds, exploring with curiosity and genuine care the ways in which Jesus shows up in the lives of others, and may we do all of that without judgement. Amen.
 
Let us pray:
 
Merciful God,  who is more than we can ever imagine,  give us a wider vision of the world; give us a broader view of justice; give us dreams of peace that are not defined by boundaries of geography or race or religion, or by the limitations of worldly structures and systems.
 
Open our eyes and our ears that wherever we go, we may hear your voice calling us by name; calling us to serve, calling us to share, calling us to praise, so that we never give up on the promise of your kingdom, where the world is transformed, and all can enjoy life in all its fullness. Amen.
 
~ Prayer posted on the Monthly Prayers page of the Christian Aid website. http://www.christianaid.org.uk