Off the Clock

I'm on holidays for the week, returning to work June 30. In the meantime, for any pastoral care emergencies, contact the Rev. Deb Dolbear-Van Bilsen. Sunday worship on the 29th is at Melbourne United Church, 10:30 a.m.

See you when I get back,
Kenji

sermon excerpts: "Young Wisdom"

(Job 32: 1-22)
Three of Job’s friends spend entire chapters with no one convincing anyone of anything. Job thinks he is innocent and undeserving of such pain and loss, but will not curse God’s name. His friends think God is obviously punishing him for a terrible misdeed or moral crime.

Into this stalemate comes a new, fresh voice. Elihu expresses his anger with everyone: to Job, for being so self-centred, “poor me” and justifying himself instead of God; and with his 3 friends for being so inflexible and judgmental, presuming Job to be wrong even though they had no proof.

When it comes to public forums or debates, we may defer speaking our own piece until someone more qualified or educated speaks. But what happens when this person we’ve been waiting for doesn’t really say anything that amounts to anything? We can nod politely and go about the business at hand, or speak up and offer an opinion.

This is what Elihu does. Youngest of Job’s friends, he’s well-versed in the social order and permits his elders to speak first. When they miss the point, he is like a wine skin about to burst and has to pipe up. ... Elihu suggests wisdom comes from the spirit not from experience. We find wisdom in many places and many forms, not just a university degree or a mountain-top guru.

If we go by today’s numbers: 18-30 is the definition of youth, according to the World Council of Churches. At the end of this summer, I’m going to be one of the chaplains at Kairos 2008 which is a national youth and young adult conference held every 3 years for people in that age range. The Emerging Spirit ad campaign of The United Church of Canada attempts to connect with people 30-45.
Yet, if we consider the baby boomer generation, the focus of the population is going to be on the so-called “silver tsunami” as this sector retires from the work force with great effect on pension funds, the health care system and real estate. I’ve heard it described as a “rectangle shoved up the age pyramid”.

I’ve heard arguments and questions about why the church doesn’t throw all its resources at this renewable resource of retiring and aging people who have far more disposable income and discretionary time to the church than children, youth and young families. (I’m just repeating what I’ve heard).

But we value the fragility of youth and children – 3 years is an entire generation for a young person. When we consider how deeply the formative influences impact the rest of their lives from these early years, it is little wonder why the church devotes so much time and attention to nurturing these developing souls. Unless we reach them as youngsters, it’s going to tougher to find them as baby-booming retirees.

Based on the popularity of YouTube videos on the Internet, any number of on-line discussion forums and news comment features, kids have the ability and inclination to participate and get involved. Much like Elihu, they’re bursting to offer their ideas. From a lecture by Princeton Theological Seminary’s Kenda Creasy Dean: “Kids want to produce culture, they want to consume it, they want to respond to it. They are partners in creating their own experiences of culture. Which means, if they are not partners in creating their own experiences of church, the church doesn’t register.”

...Sure, we can fiddle with the order of hymns or style of prayers, but until we make stronger connections across the generations and pews, kids won’t want to partner in creating their own experiences of church.

... No church community is ever going to get it right, it’s never going to be perfect. There will be conflicts, personality clashes, differences of opinion, and outright mistakes made. But if we can include and engage people, younger or older, who are seeking a safe haven from the criticisms of the world, a place to ask questions, to wonder about God, to feel included, we can be the church as it was meant to be: the hands and feet of Christ, bringing the power of the spirit to all in need.

Sunday School Sunday

This Sunday will feature potluck lunches after worship as we celebrate the ministries of the respective Sunday School programs at Appin and Trinity United.

At Appin, 9:45 a.m. worship service reflecting on Job's young friend, Elihu, (Job 32: 1-22) and Jesus as a boy in the Temple (Luke 2: 41-52). Picnic and lunch follow - bring salad and dessert!

At Trinity, we will welcome our neighbours from St. John's Anglican Church to an outdoor (weather permitting!) worship service led by the Sunday School; bring lawn chairs for seating. Special guests Dora the Explorer, Boots the Monkey and Dr. Indiana Jones will undertake a search for God. Potluck picnic lunch follows the conclusion of their quest.

sermon excerpts: "Faith as a Legacy"

(Genesis 18: 1-15; Matthew 9:35-10:8)
Abraham and Sarah had no children. This was the ultimate insult for a successful family who obeyed God, uprooting their lives on a divine say-so. There was no one to pass the torch to, if you don’t count Ishmael, Abraham’s son that he had with Sarah’s maid, Hagar.
...
The spotlight shifts to Sarah; yes, even on Father’s Day, we need to acknowledge the mothers. If anyone felt the stigma of being childless, it was her. After all, it was her body that was barren, she was the one to blame. She’d already lived a full life and settled firmly into her golden years. It is outrageous to think that now, finally, she would have a child. Presuming she and her baby would survive the ordeal, because birth was a literal life and death situation, but you don’t question the Lord about these things.

God had promised them this truth and three chapters of Genesis later, Isaac was born. From this family came the Jewish faith and relationship to God, YHWH, and its great people. Fast forward a few centuries and Jesus, as one born into this identity, seeks out the lost people of his faith.

Jesus sends out the twelve to the lost people of Israel, those who claim Jewish faith but were not part of the community – because of illness or hardship or social exclusion. This was Christ bringing faith to the people where they were, not waiting for the people to come to him.

It’s a good lesson for our church. We need to take the good work that we do to those who are in need and go out beyond ourselves, instead of waiting for them to come to our building and fit into our set routine of praying and singing, sitting and standing.

Compare and contrast the approaches of Abraham and Jesus: do we sit and wait for God to come us, or do we get out into the world and find the divine by doing God’s work? Both methods work to a degree, but is there a way to combine them?

One of the measures of church success is to see what people unconnected to the church think of or know about your ministry. The mark that Christ made is the legacy that we follow and that we ourselves leave. Just as we have to recognize that the memory of fathers may include abuse and neglect and more harm that good, we also have to admit that the work of our faith has not always been good or pleasant.

This past week, the apology to the First Nations for the racist philosophy and abusive reality of residential schools serves as another reminder of this unfortunate fact. ... Just because we were not directly involved with the residential schools, as teachers or administrators, doesn’t mean that we are exempt. Just like people used to grumble, and still do, in the United Church around the time we made our apology about the residential schools. I’ve heard many debates about why they, as individual members, have to apologize for something the United Church did as a policy.

It is individual members and supporters of the local United Church congregations that bearing the brunt of criticism and questions from neighbours and friends and other churches in town when it’s reported that the moderator said he doesn’t believe in that Jesus is God, when same sex marriages are permitted by the United Church. We are the ones who live with the reality and consequences of such statements.

But these are part of our legacy as a denomination; this is the work of our ancestors, mothers and fathers of faith who wanted to leave an honest and justice-seeking church for their children, biological or spiritual. It is not for lack of effort or vision that our churches are suffering – maybe we’re trying too hard, or not delivering what people want, or not recognizing that the world has changed too much for our way of being a faith community. Like many parents, the church is scratching its collective head, trying to figure out what it is with kids and young people these days.

... So yes, we know that something has to change or be different. As a church we wonder what the future holds, what the particular legacy of our involvement in the congregation might be. This past week, I’ve been giving a great deal of thought to my own mortality, wondering how a young and healthy father can suddenly die. But in the end, what we have is not going to last. What we teach and share with those around us, who we are, will persist and live on.

As Christians who came from the Jewish tradition that owes its birth to Abraham, the story of faith continues in us. That same spirit is what calls us to want better things for the world. Even if the expression of how that might happen has been locked up into pulpits and pews for the past few centuries. We go forth from this moment as people of hope, possibility and faith.