Rural Regional Worship

This Sunday, being the 5th Sunday of the month, is a shared worship service of the Southwest Middlesex area United Churches. As such, worship at Appin and Trinity United will occur at Bethesda United in Kerwood at 11 a.m. with lunch to follow.

Perhaps it's fitting that we meet together to celebrate Pentecost?

sermon excerpts: "All You Need Is Love" (John 15: 9-17)

This is what the Harlequin webpage tells its prospective writers (click here). It’s pretty straightforward and self-explanatory - after all, love is a universal story, isn’t it? But we know that real life is complicated and resists cookie-cutter attempts to simplify our humanity into mass-marketed paperback narratives.

Even still, we try to distill truths into one memorable message, one witty mantra, into a cogent life mission statement. Jesus, facing his death and crucifixion, is trying to summarize his ministry for his followers. This is the practical application of the gospel: “Love one a
nother, as much as I have loved you.”

Easy as that. All you need is love. Love is all you need. But we’re not talking about a Harlequin love, a breathy, steamy, consuming obsession that addles the mind and distracts us. What Jesus speaks of is the gritty love for any and all other people, to accept them as they are and to give of ourselves for their well-being, going so far as to give up our own life for another person.

Can we love like that? Our own prejudices, loyalties and priorities will always cloud the issue. We, as finite beings with limited time and energy, are not able to love infinitely and unconditionally, not the way that Christ loves us. He must have known this, but still he commands us to do this. But is it really love if it has to be commanded?

Must we be coerced into faithful and peace-seeking relationships with one another? Is that being true to ourselves? At the Faith Fair on Wednesday, the Muslim presenter explained one of the misconceptions about Islam is that their deep respect for other people’s beliefs. They don’t go around trying to convert people, he said that when you expect to change others, you only frustrate yourself.

Jesus goes as far as to say that we are his friends if we do what he commands. That doesn’t sound quite right, of course he’ll be our friend if we do what he wants us to! What about unconditional love and respect and acceptance? What about friends are friends forever?

Although this notion of friendship is something new. Jesus describes the progression of their relationship from master and servant to being friends. Jesus states the new status of who they are: “no longer do I call you servants, but friends.”

A servant blindly follows directions, not knowing the how or why of the instructions. Jesus has taken great pains to clarify and explain his parables, his philosophy, the scriptural connections to his life so that his friends would know the fullness of who he was, of his truth and his being.

In spite of all that the group of friends would go through, jealousy, infighting, betrayal, persecution, it was their love for the Saviour and for one another that saw them through the rest of their years. They did not have comfortable lives, they did not have a public place to gather for worship, there was no organ, or baptismal font, or stained glass windows.

All they had was one another. And despite the tension and rivalry between John, Paul, George and Ringo, The Beatles were able work together and creatively because of a love and respect they had for each other’s gifts. All you need is love, love is all you need. That is the circular logic of our faith, but it is inescapable truth of Jesus’ teaching. We love in an imperfect place, as ordinary people seeking holiness in our days. May this truth be more real than a paperback romance, commanded by Christ, revealed in scripture and grown within our very selves.

Spring Study Leave

After a busy week of meetings, confirmation class visit to a mosque, a memorial service, Reiko's 6th birthday festivities and a pulpit exchange, I'm off for a week of Study Leave.

I'm headed to Princeton's Forum on Youth Ministry (just arrived in Scranton for an overnight pitstop) and will be back to work May 4. In the meantime, Rev. Birchall is available for any pastoral emergencies. See you when I'm back!

sermon excerpts: "When in Doubt"

The events of that first Easter must have been frantic and mindboggling for the disciples. What was anyone supposed to believe? Amid the confusion and chaos, Jesus appears in a locked and sheltered room to the disciples. His words are ones of comfort and care – peace be with you, the Holy Spirit be with you, forgiveness be with you, the implication being to go and share these gifts and new understanding of life and faith. Those gathered receive those words and are amazed. All except for one person, who wasn’t there.

Thomas is another one in the Bible who bears the brunt of a one-sided telling of a story. The poor guy comes back to the room; he had been out so he misses out on the experience of Jesus’ resurrected reappearance. He could only go by what the others told him. We don’t know of the group dynamics of the 12 or what the full extent of Judas’ betrayal did to their sense of trust and safety with each other.

Nevertheless, I’m sure there were practical jokes and laughter at the expense of others, so Thomas might have dismissed this tale as a warped and cruel joke. Somebody’s expressing grief in a peculiar fashion. Thomas’ reaction can be expected and understood.

He wants to see the wounds from the cross, to be sure that it was the same Jesus that was crucified. Which would be rather morbid had not Jesus already done so before. All Thomas wants is to have the same opportunity that the others did, to have the same information to base his decision on. Is that doubt or just wanting to be treated equally?

Any reasonable person would do the same and yet he carries the dubious title of Doubting Thomas for all the millennia that follow. That’s what you get for not being there.

For us today, we may be, for different reasons, wondering: Who is not here, who is missing out? What would it take to convince them of what happened here today? Is it necessary to examine and touch scars and wounds? We know the pain and discomfort of poking at injury, stirring up hornets nests long since discarded …

We are known by our scars. They are what distinguish us, show that we have lived life, that we have been scathed by accident, intention or mishap. We have scars and wounds as individual people, as a community, as a church.

We have been hurt, made vulnerable, but survived. They are part of our story, of who we are. As a United Church of Canada, we show the marks of good intentions with First Nations residential schools and the harm they caused. We were beaten up in 1988 with the provocative stance that sexual orientation has no bearing upon the suitability of a candidate for ministry.

Granted our own pain and experiences do not compare to crucifixion, but our scars and wounds tell the tale of who we are. They speak of our presence at the cross. We are not perfect, we have not escaped through life untouched.

We are damaged people, of that there is no doubt. And still, we are renewed and redeemed. There is the Easter miracle. For all our hurt and injury, pain and suffering, we are not abandoned or all.

Doubts and questions, desire for proof, for more information, to be included in the greater knowledge is the one characteristic that Thomas is mocked for. Lost in this story is the message of Christ: peace be with you. The Spirit is with you. Forgiveness is with you – do with it what you will. Thomas does not doubt this. Neither can we.