New Beginnings

During the month of January we enjoyed the preaching of Greg Simpson. We wish him well in his ministry and hope that his time with us gave him some help in discerning his future in the church.

Now we welcome Rev. Barbara Clark to our pastoral charge for the next few months.

Farewell but not 'Good-bye'

...And so we say 'Farewell' to Kenji. Although his time with us was relatively short (read 'too short'!) we have all been changed by the encounter. A lightning bolt takes only seconds to impart a great energy. Likewise, Kenji's energy has affected our congregations. We have been instructed to look inward for the tools needed not only to function but to flourish. He has sent us on a journey of discernment, of searching who we are and who we want to be as individuals and as congregations.

A committee has been formed to assess the features and requirements of our congregations and the search will begin for a new shepherd to lead our flock. There is also a task force in place to look at the United Church presence in the southwest region of Middlesex Presbytery that includes Appin and Glencoe. Perhaps a new vision will emerge, a new way of doing church, and we pray that we can be open to God's will for us.

We thank you, Kenji, for your wisdom, theology, technological wizardry, humour, friendship, leadership, and service, and we wish you well in your new charge. Peace be with you and your family.

sermon excerpts: "Journey On"

...
The Christmas story is of journey, from Nazareth to Bethlehem, from shepherd fields to a manger. There are wise men travelling, and another escape into the safety of Egypt. Jesus’ entire ministry was on the move. The missions of the apostles trace back and forth over the known Mediterranean world. So it is not a shock that our own lives are filled with transition, that the only thing we can count on is change.

With this change upon us, our time together is concluding, and we might agree that it has been too short, but at least we had this time at all. For a while, we journeyed together and we are changed for the encounter: the manse in Glencoe was sold, we’ve incorporated audio-visuals to supplement the worship service, broadened and enhanced work in the community through the ministerial association and Faith Fair events.

We welcomed university students from South Korea, confirmed some of our own, and watched the children, youth, as well as our parents and grandparents, even ourselves grow just a bit older – sometimes quite dramatically, sometimes not. We’ve commemorated funerals, weddings, baptisms and the special occasion of just an ordinary Sunday.

We have not solved the problems of too few people doing too many things to keep the churches going. We have not been able to break out of a financial practice of belt-tightening just to keep pace with costs. We have not satisfactorily addressed the issues and tensions of being congregations in relationship with one another. We have not claimed a bright and shining new vision for the rural regional network of southwestern Middlesex County.

But we have demonstrated enough foresight to strategize and try to plan. We’ve declared a willingness to see what might be possible. We’ve decided that things cannot continue the way they have been, that we don’t want to be circling the drain. We’ve expressed a desire for our church and faith to be life-giving and vital for its members and not just another series of tasks, meetings and grudging obligations.

It is in the chaos amid unknown futures, that God’s work happens best. In Genesis, the Creator fashioned the world from the chaos of swirling seas. The healing pool of Bethsaida was only effective when things were churning and agitated. The scripture from Hebrews speaks of suffering as a necessary evil of our existence, but promises deliverance by the divine one born to a human family.

...When the calendar flips to 2011, some may be hard pressed to see a bright future for the church. Some may remember that every journey has its peaks and valleys and that sometimes we need to move back for a time before we can move forward again. While the work of any particular minister may be a 9-day wonder, the work of a faith community is a generational enterprise.

No matter how we might measure the official length of our time together – an estimated 1278 days; 30 672 hours; 1.8 million minutes – I would hazard to say there has been depth and quality to what we have done here. Whatever seeds have been planted will need time and perspective before we might know the full story of what has happened here.

Until then, we pause this day to remember, honour and celebrate the time that we’ve shared with as partners in ministry in this place, we look ahead to the respective journeys that our lives will take and trust that our paths will cross again. It is into God’s keeping that we travel on, in faith, hope, peace, joy and love.

Christmas Eve service - Luke 2: 1-20

The kids are cute and a little predictable in the way they try to fit themselves into the story. We can figure out who is interested in fairies or astronomy, whose dad might be named “Mike”. Like any of us, they’re trying to find where they can fit into the picture. And despite the historical, cultural dominance of Westernized Jesus (blond hair, blue eyes), more and more people are focusing on the universality of Jesus: seeing him as from their own ethnicity and heritage or experience and identity.

But much of this is lost in all of pressure to find the perfect gift, to bake the perfect batch of goodies, to decorate the perfect homestead. We’ve become too distracted with fitting in with society’s version of what success and life should be. We’re trying to find where we fit into the artificial ranks of popularity, prestige and prosperity.

We gather tonight to put that aside for a few moments, to focus again on why this time is so special. The longest night of the year has passed; the days are getting longer. We celebrate the gift of life, of divine power that can come to all of us in ordinary ways.

The story of giving birth at inconvenient times or in unconventional places is not a new one. We have admired already the rise of an individual to greatness from humble beginnings, of the underdog winning over insurmountable odds. These are themes and plotlines that are common to our history.

What is different, what is unique, what is so compelling is not what we might use to put ourselves into the Christmas story, but the realization that the Christmas story is already within ourselves. When God came to earth as an infant, to journey among us, with us, as us, faith shifted from what the high priests could do on our behalf, to what our own spirit might be able to do and be. The quiet voice of our conscience, our gut feeling about a person or a situation, the first instinct of reaction is where eternal wisdom, knowledge and truth may be found.

And that may be as good a sermon message that I would want to finish with, from this pulpit – except I have some more to add. It is bittersweet that this celebration of Christmas is marred by the fact that this is my last service in this church as minister. But that is life, too. Gathered here in the congregation, mixed with the energy and excitement of Christmas’ arrival and birth is the sadness, regret and uncertainty of death and loss.

Back in Jesus’ family tree, we can trace the lineage back to a Moabite woman named Ruth who had married a son of a woman named Naomi. If you remember this story, you know that life turned rather nasty for them when their husbands died. Naomi decides to return to her hometown of Bethlehem and her daughter-in-law Ruth accompanies her. Upon her return, Naomi declares that her name be changed to “Mara” which means “bitter” because life has treated her so horribly.

I mention this because there is some scholarship that thinks that the name “Mary” is a derivation from the name “Mara.” There is much that is bittersweet in the nativity story. For Mary: a young teenager, giving birth far from home, no family support, no midwives, so much fear and anxiety. For Joseph: a conflicted husband, trying to support the birth of a son that was not his, alone with his labouring wife, no one at 911 to talk him through the delivery, so much fear and anxiety.

This was the end of their life as they know it. From this point on, their life was not their own. Not only was there worry and uncertainty about raising an infant, of colic, ear infections, and every fevered cry, but this was the Saviour, God incarnate. As much as everyone was happy at the safe arrival of a baby boy, the pressure and anxiousness must have put a bittersweet flavour on the proceedings.

Yet, Mary rejoiced, treasuring the memories and stories of shepherds and angels. She had a ministry of motherhood; this was her clear focus and purpose, and that resolve was a comfort. She knew her goal and vision was the care of the child, that she could do. If she let herself get caught up in matters of Christological implications of an incarnational avatar, then all would be lost. By concentrating on who she was and what she could do, as a mother of a son, wife of a husband, citizen of Judea, God’s will would be done.