Luke 1: 26-38 - December 15, 2024 - Advent III

 The word “angel” can evoke a wide range of responses.  For some folks, the visits of angels, exactly as described in the Bible align nicely with their experiences and beliefs, of angels or guardian angels, giving them specific guidance and safety at key points in their lives.  For others, all this talk of angels is the stuff of fantasy, literary devices invented by ancient authors to make sense of stories that otherwise would not make sense at all.  I think many of us end up somewhere in between: perhaps no visions of Angels, but we can name one or more times when we received specific saving kindness from another person that was unmistakably “angelic.”

The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church says that Angels played a “comparatively peripheral role” in most people’s devotional practices in the earliest days of Christianity, but by 500 years later there came to be a structured, even bureaucratic understanding of nine categories of angels and archangels, three hierarchies of three, some closer to God, some closer to earth.

To me, the presence of angels brings to mind the notion within Celtic spirituality of “thin places.” Irish travel blogger Mindi Burgoyne writes, “Thin places are places of energy, a place where the veil between this world and the eternal world is thin. A thin place is where one can walk in [these] two worlds – the worlds are fused together, knitted loosely where the differences can be discerned or tightly where the two worlds become one”.  She continues, writing “Truth abides in thin places; naked, raw, hard to face truth… [a place where] the human spirit is awakened, we gain connection and become part of something larger than we can perceive.”

When I read a scriptural encounter between a person and an angel, I envision the two of them inhabiting a thin place. Whether you believe in angels as heavenly messengers who span that distance between heaven and earth to deliver a word of wisdom or safety from God, or see them as a metaphor for the way that God guides us away from things that would place us in great peril, is up to you – and it’s also okay if the whole notion of angels is outside your beliefs.  As for me, my personal theology would not change a whole lot if one were able to prove either the existence or non-existence of angels, yet this I do believe: I believe that there is a God, who is personally linked to us by the transformative power of everlasting, boundless and unconditional love, and I believe that God uses various ways and means to speak to us and listen to us.  Prayer, meditation, dreams, writings and songs and poems and visions, can convey the urgings of our loving God.  So can acts of kindness by complete strangers…new revelations sometimes gentle, sometimes courageous, seemingly coming from nowhere…moments in which the presence of the risen Christ feels especially real. 

In the presence of angels, however understood, abides a sense deep in your bones that you matter, that you have a place in this big, amazing universe.  All of these are, to me, what I would call the work of angels, pathways by God communicates with us (and vice versa).  And when we are in times and places where the separation between us and heaven feels particularly thin, the language of angels, physical or metaphorical, can help us feel God’s holy embrace.  

Our gospel reading this morning from Luke described a very thin-place encounter between Mary and the angel Gabriel in which Mary is presented with an outrageous and impossible plan for her life: she is to bear, nurse and nurture the Messiah.  In a beautiful piece of prose, there is a rhythmic and dynamic exchange between Mary and this old Angel, who seemingly had been active since at least the time of the prophet Daniel, some 600 years earlier.  The Angel is polite yet insistent, while Mary is troubled, then curious, then open to whatever it is that God has in mind.

No fewer than five times, Angels make an appearance in the nativity stories.

1.     In addition to Mary’s encounter with Gabriel,

2.     In the first chapter of Luke, fifteen verses and six months earlier, the angel Gabriel, makes another appearance.  This encounter was with a priest named Zechariah, with the angel informing the priest that his wife Elisabeth will give birth to a child, and they are to name him John.  As Shannon mentioned last Sunday, we then see what happens when Zechariah tries to mansplain to the Angel that this couldn’t possibly happen: the Angel pauses, looks at Zechariah, and takes away his voice until the baby is safely born and dedicated!

3.     In a scene well-known to us from the 2^nd chapter of Luke, on the night of Jesus’ birth an angel appears to the shepherds.  In the words of the King James Version, even though the angel is telling them to be not afraid, “they were sore afraid” and in most modern translations this gets rendered, “they were terrified!”  When the angel was joined by “a multitude of the heavenly host” the shepherds may have initially become even more afraid, but eventually their sense of awe in the moment and their trust in these thin-space messengers urged them to go to the manger, and from there to become the first heralds of the good news of the birth of a special child in Bethlehem.  

4.     In Matthew 1, an angel of the Lord appears to Joseph, informing him that Mary is pregnant, and urging Joseph to remain in relationship with her and be a father to the child.

5.     And one chapter later, once Jesus is born, this Angel of the Lord appears to Joseph once more, warning him that the child is at risk due to the murderous rage of King Herod, and Mary and Jesus are to be taken to safety in Egypt.  Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, in their wonderful little book about the First Christmas, describe this as Matthew’s literary attempt to align the life and purpose of Jesus with the life and purpose of Moses: both needed to be hidden from the rage of the King, both would bring deliverance to their people.

In all of these stories, the presence of the angel ensures that the characters in the story understand the unusual and specific ways that God’s immense love will touch their lives.  Elisabeth had given up on ever having a child, yet here was John, born to herald the Messiah.  Mary, from the eyes of Luke’s gospel, did not yet have any reason to think about having a child, and yet here was Jesus.   Shepherds were appointed to be witnesses and messengers, Joseph the builder was appointed to help shape the life of the Christ child, the holy family was sent to safety: all of these were indicators of God’s involvement in their lives. 

And what about in your life?  Are there holy moments you can recall when God, directly or indirectly, showed evidence of how deeply loved and cared for you are?  Are there unexplained moments, when an act of grace or kindness by a stranger or acquaintance has overwhelmed you?  In your life’s story, are there thin space encounters, when your course of action became clear, when things suddenly made sense, when you knew that you were in the presence of the holy?  These big stories of angels in the gospel stories can potentially help us recognize times in our lives when God has reached in: to bless us with wisdom, to steer us with guidance, to lift us out of prolonged sorrow, to touch us with love.  

In a few minutes, we will engage angels in a different and very physical manner, as we place angel ornaments on the tree in honour of loved ones we miss at Christmas.  I suspect that this, too, will be a time when the distance between us and God is very, very thin, and the love that God shines on us is very, very bright.  Just as the angels in the Bible stories carried love messages from God to humans, so the angels we place on the tree will speak of love experienced and gratefully remembered.

May the wonders of these stories, and God’s great desire to be in relationship with you and with all the world, bless you this day and always.  Amen.

References cited and consulted:

Borg, Marcus J. and Crossan, John Dominic. The First Christmas: what the gospels really teach about Jesus’ birth.  NYC: HarperOne, 2007.

Burgoyne, Mindy. https://thinplacestour.com/what-are-thin-places/

Hallowell, Billy. https://www.pureflix.com/insider/christmas-angels-the-powerful-role-of-angels-in-the-nativity-story

Livingstone, E.A. (editor) The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church.  London, UK: Oxford University Press, 1977.

O’Donohue, John. To Bless the space between us: a book of blessings. NYC: Doubleday, 2008.

Schmidt, Donald. Birth of Jesus for Progressive Christians.  Kelowna: Wood Lake, 2019.

© 2024 Rev Greg Wooley, Osoyoos-Oliver United Church Pastoral Charge

 

Luke 3: 2-6, 15-18 - December 8, 2024 - Advent II

My relationship with pop culture falls somewhere between shaky, dated and non-existent. It wasn’t always so. As a kid who watched way too much TV and listened to lots of radio, I grew up as a child of my era, well aware of social trends, celebrities, and other things of no significance.  But it didn’t take long before that grasp of trendiness started to slip away, especially when I twigged to how much being trendy was tied to consumerism.

When our kids became young adults and moved away from home, my last connection with pop culture left with them. So if you show me a picture of, say, Kim Kardashian, I can tell you her name within three or four guesses but I have no real idea why she’s well known.  
I’m pretty well versed on the hits of Joni Mitchell
but as for Taylor Swift, well, of course I know who she is and that she ends her world tour today in Vancouver, but would be hard pressed to name even one of her songs. Some of this due to a tired, aging memory, but it’s also because I lost my pop-culture connection and didn’t have enough personal reason to rebuild it.

Each Advent, when John the Baptizer comes roaring back onto the scene, I am conflicted because he feels like an iconic pop-culture figure from a milieu I do not understand. His call to repentance and his preparatory work for the Messiah are so clear, and are still so deeply needed, yet when I picture his weirdness and wildness I have no idea what to make of him. Outrageous John is to me like a Reality TV personality from shows I don’t watch, a TikTok creator of content I’ll never watch, or a social media influencer from an world I don’t really understand.  What I do know about him, from the gospels, is this:  

• ·       John the Baptist was a relative of Jesus of Nazareth, as their moms, Elizabeth and Mary were kin whose pregnancies had a profound divine element;
• ·       He was, from the womb, understood as the one to prepare the way for the Messiah;
• ·       He looked and sounded like a wild man: a coat of camel’s hair, a leather belt around his waist, a diet of locusts and wild honey, pacing the shores of the River Jordan, thundering his disapproval of the religious establishment;
• ·        I know that John had disciples, some of whom became disciples of Jesus;
• ·       He had people come from as far away as Jerusalem, some 70 km away, to confess their sins and be baptized, and Jesus was among those baptized by him;
• ·       and we know that his harsh, uncompromising ways, and his popularity, which may well have exceeded that of Jesus, eventually got him imprisoned and killed.

So, what to do with John the Baptist/Baptizer?  Loud, brash, weird, and right on point with his critique of his day, and ours. My hunch is that in our day, he would be all over social media, people lined up to be baptized by him all having their smartphones along and posting selfies to their favourite platform.  And just like it was 2000 years ago, I sense that the powers that be, threatened by his words of truth, would put an end to him.

If we understand peace as a stress-free state of being where everything’s nice and chill, it seems odd to be talking about John the Baptist on the Sunday of Peace.  However, peace – the broad and beautiful Jewish concept of shalom - is so much more than that.  Shalom, as defined by Jewish journalist Susan Perlman, is about peace but also wholeness, completeness, soundness, health, safety and wide-spread, available prosperity.. Rundle Memorial United Church in Banff had a tradition of lighting a peace candle each Sunday, using these words to express the breadth of what peace is all about: “Peace is not merely the absence of conflict, but the presence of justice. Peace is what happens when those who have much do not have too much, and those who have little do not have too little, when the very old and the very young are safe and secure, parents can feed their children and themselves, and all have the opportunity for meaningful work in their community. Let us pray and work for this kind of peace”.

In order for there to be peace, there needs to be justice.  In order for there to be justice, there needs to be a desire for equity, a levelling out of wealth and resources, likely with some overbalance in order to get there, a removal of all manner of barriers so that there is fair opportunity for everyone to experience shalom. Such peace, justice and equity will come only if the systems change, systems that continually fill the pockets and bellies of those who have more than enough while others go empty, away.  This is no small thing, and John the Baptist let us know the cosmic scale for such levelling to occur.  Luke sees in this the words of the prophet Isaiah 40:3-5 which said,  

“In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord;
make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 
⁴ Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.
⁵ And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together.
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

If there was ever a place that could picture such a transformation, it’s here in the south Okanagan, where the highway running through desert landscapes is anything but straight, a place with valleys, mountains and hills, places both rough and rugged.  Isaiah and then John the Baptizer, quoting Isaiah, use this powerful metaphor of transformation to describe the coming realm of the Messiah. Interpreting this through a Christian lens, we understand this as the unfolding of the Kingdom or Kin-dom of God.  The bigness of the metaphor – mountains levelled, valleys filled – make clear that this is not just a tweaking of the way things are, or something done by human hands; the way God intends is drastically different from what is now.  And as with our musings on hope last Sunday, this yearning for peace founded in justice is not just wishful thinking of a world that will never be; it is a belief, a full-bodied yearning, that God’s heart for Shalom can and will become the heart of the world.   

John the Baptizer shares this vision, and then launches into the sharp realities of the work ahead.  Yes, the establishment of the Kin-Dom of God is something God will enact but that does not leave us as mere spectators - the spadework of peacemaking is done at the human level.  When a state of war is replaced by the kind of peace treaty that truly addresses the needs of the disadvantaged, the work of peacemaking is being done. When gender-based violence and discrimination is named as sin, when government policies targeting girls and women and the 2SLGBTQIA+ community are overturned, the work of peacebuilding is being done.  When the pervasive suspicion that limit the lives of people of colour is named and addressed, room is made for peace and justice to emerge.  When the countless barriers, visible and invisible that are faced by people with disabilities are identified, awareness heightened, and solutions not just named but funded, the work of peace and justice moves forward. 

And as John so bluntly points out, preparing for the arrival or advent of this new realm requires repentance, a desire to end current behaviours.  To repent is, literally, to “turn around”, to recognize that something is not serving a good purpose, name it, and commit to ways that are life-giving.  New Testament Professor Warren Carter writes, “By repenting, people prepare the way of the Lord and make his paths straight. To repent signifies, then, not only specific changes in structures and ways of living, but a basic receptivity to God's purposes”.  As Church, some of the most important work that we do in opening ourselves to God’s purposes, both as a denomination and as congregations, is to recognize ways that do not serve God’s call to peace and justice, to turn away from those things and, where others have been harmed or isolated, engage in forms of reconciliation – some of which may have costs to them.  We prepare the way for the transformative peace of Christ by cultivating habits of peace, justice, and active love in our individual lives, in the ways of this community of faith, in how we are in the world around us.

Earlier in today’s message, I wondered aloud where John the Baptist might fit in the pop culture of today.  I even went so far as to ask my good friend, Professor Google, whether others thought that John the Baptist would be a “social media influencer” if he were here today, that is, someone who would connect with people, communicate with them, and attempt through that connection to influence them in positive ways.  (i.e., not just someone who makes repeated ill-informed comments online).  In general, the voices I read online suggested John would indeed be an influencer  While I cannot for the life of me picture John the Baptist owning any device that would get him online, he certainly understood how to capture people’s attention, a key skill in the world of influencing, then he pushed them to do three things: repent of their current ways, open themselves to God’s new ways, and then give themselves to the ways of Jesus.  Unlike the kind of self-serving celebrity whose only goal is to build themselves up, John understood that his entire purpose was to get people ready for the path that Jesus would walk with them.  John caught peoples’ attention, confronted them with how they needed to change, signified this new life through the waters of baptism, and pointed them to his cousin Jesus, the very embodiment of shalom. #JohntheBaptist would have had lots of followers, but his ultimate goal was to point them to peace, justice, and Jesus.

And so, inspired by John’s call to repentance and his image from the prophet Isaiah of a new day, we yearn for a peace founded in justice, we commit ourselves to change, we pray as individuals and as Church that the path of Jesus will be our path as well.  In the name of the Holy One who brings life for all who wander and suffer and carry heavy burdens, may the sharp words of John the Baptist catch our attention and lead us to the life and light and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

References cited or consulted:

Carter, Warren. Matthew and the margins: A Sociopolitical and Religious Reading. Cited in https://www.crossmarks.com/brian/matt3x1.htm

Coursera. “What is a social media influencer? And how to become one.” https://www.coursera.org/articles/social-media-influencer

Dabbs, Matt. “John the Baptist would have made a horrible social media influencer”. https://mattdabbs.com/2022/08/18/john-the-baptist-would-have-made-a-horrible-social-media-influencer/

Perlman, Susan. https://inheritmag.com/articles/what-is-shalom-the-true-meaning

Reaoch, Stacey.  “The Social Media Strategy of John the Baptist.”  https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/the-social-media-strategy-of-john-the-baptist/

Schwartz, Quinn.  “The History of Influencer Marketing.”
https://grin.co/blog/the-history-of-influencer-marketing/#:~:text=Although%20influencer%20marketing%20has%20technically,prominence%20in%20the%20early%202010s.

© 2024 Rev Greg Wooley, Osoyoos-Oliver United Church Pastoral Charge

1 Thessalonians 3: 9-13 - December 1, 2024 - Advent I

For several decades now, the themes of Hope, Peace, Love and Joy have been connected to the four Sundays of Advent.  I find it rather odd, then, that not one of the four lectionary readings for this Sunday of Hope (Jeremiah 33, Psalm 25, Luke 21, 1 Thessalonians 3) actually included the word “hope”!  Yet there was something about this little reading from 1^st Thessalonians, a letter written by the Apostle Paul, that drew me to it.  

Thessalonica was and is a Greek city about 500 km north of Athens, and Paul had a close relationship with the house Churches there.  He had lived and preached in Thessalonica only three weeks, but the response was tremendous, with both Jews and Gentiles enlivened by the good news of Jesus Christ.  There was also a local group there that was dead set against Paul and his teachings, so much so that they followed him to other towns to oppose him after he left Thessalonica. This combination of the rapid response of the people, and their resilience in the face of fierce and committed opposition, endeared this Church to the Apostle.

He had his worries for them – some members of the congregation were so convinced that the return of Christ was going to happen immediately, that they quit work and avoided any type of sin so they would be blameless when the Lord returned, and Paul needed to snap them out of that behaviour.  Still, he loved them deeply.

In the first chapter of 1^st Thessalonians Paul wrote, “² We always thank God for you all and always mention you in our prayers. ³ For we remember before our God and Father how you put your faith into practice, how your love made you work so hard, and how your hope in our Lord Jesus Christ is firm…  ⁶ Even though you suffered much, you received the message with the joy that comes from the Holy Spirit”.   One chapter later, he wrote (2:19-20) ¹⁹ “it is you…who are our hope, our joy, and our reason for boasting of our victory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes. ²⁰ Indeed, you are our pride and our joy!”

Imagining yourself in one of the house churches in Thessalonica, can you imagine receiving praise like that?  Clearly, there was something about them that touched Paul’s heart. Their faith in the risen Christ and their group’s ability to be energized by love even when things were tough, humbled and encouraged the Apostle when his own faith and energy flagged.  I hunch he was also impressed by their ability to receive correction when they got carried away with their zeal.

On this Sunday of Hope, it’s important for me to start with this beautiful connection between Paul and the Thessalonian Church, but not to end there.  For this combination Paul saw in them of faith in Christ and a sturdy love that was so resilient in times of trial is something that keeps showing up throughout history.  And that’s a very good thing, for there’s no shortage of things to worry about in our day and age, from a particularly nasty group of egotistical world leaders to ongoing eco-anxiety about the fate of this planet.  We need honest words of hope that will go beyond mere platitudes, and remain staunch amidst the hardest challenges… and I’ll briefly quote from three such authors now.

1)    In 2021, a popular speaker, author and professor named Brene Brown wrote a book entitled Atlas of the Heart in which she explores the landscape of human emotion.  She writes, “Hope is a function of struggle – we develop hope not during the easy or comfortable times, but through adversity and discomfort….  Hope is not a warm, fuzzy emotion that fills us with a sense of possibility.  Hope is a way of thinking – a cognitive process [which helps one] believe in themselves and their abilities.”  Hope, then, is often forged in times of hardship, when someone or something helps us learn a belief that hard times will not be the end of us.   As someone who, 25 years ago, lost most of a year to clinical depression, I can attest that it is possible to learn how to be hopeful when all looks bleak.  It’s neither easy nor automatic, but it is possible.

 

2)    Back in 2007, Rev. Dr. Mark Giuliano, a minister then serving in The United Church of Canada wrote these words about the way hope is held in community: “During the first two days of my ordained ministry, I was called to minister at a funeral for a 16-month-old toddler who had been tragically killed in an automobile accident. 

“Not only was I filled with deep sorrow for the family of that small child, I was overwhelmed with a deep anxiety about having to be the one who would attempt to speak a word of hope [to] that community…. I wondered how we could possibly draw forth strength to praise God when our hearts were so heavy with grief.

“But as we began to sing, ‘Praise to the Lord, the almighty’ on that day of remembrance, our weak and quiet voices began to fill with strength and hope.  Even through our tears, people who were bent down [by] sorrow were able to stand straight.

“I learned some important lessons that day” Mark concludes.  “We offer God our worship not only when we have hope, but when we need hope.  I discovered that praising God isn’t a solo activity; we do it with and for each other.  And I experienced first-hand that when we rejoice in the Lord, it reminds us that even though our world may feel like it is spinning apart, God has not let go of us.”  Much like the Thessalonian Christians, who gained so much as they leaned into one another’s faith in times of trial, our Churches today are strengthened when we lean into one another’s faith in hard times.

3)    And we hear one more story of hope, this one from much earlier than 2007. There was a 14^th century English Christian Mystic named Julian of Norwich, whose story entered my heart when I spent part of my 2019 sabbatical in Norwich. 

When Julian was 30 years old, in the year 1373, she was gravely ill and nearly died.  Some think that her husband and child did die. At this time, Christ came to her through a series of visions, in which she came to know the mysteries of the Divine in a deep and holy way.  God and Christ and Spirit spoke to her in these visions at the foot of the cross, as the sufferings of Jesus spoke to the lives that people were living in her day.

Life in the 14^th century was not easy.  England was engaged in the 100 years’ war with France and “the Plague” hit Norwich three times in Julian’s lifetime, with the war and disease combining to kill a full 50% of the city’s population.  Amidst all of this, a vision of Christ on the cross said to Julian a message summed up in four words: ALL SHALL BE WELL.  When so many around her were dying because of war or illness, at a time when she wondered if she would survive, Jesus looked at her with love, and said “ALL SHALL BE WELL.”  Here’s the full quote, from Julian (Manton p.110, 68.16.66-73):

And this word: you shall not be overcome, was said sharply and mightily, for sureness and comfort against all tribulations that may come.  He did not say: you shall not be troubled, he did not say you shall not struggle, he did not say you shall not be diseased; but he did say: you shall not be overcome.  God wills that we take heed at this word, and that our faithful trust be strong in well and woe, for he loves us and delights in us…and all shall be well.

Over the past six centuries, the words of Julian of Norwich have brought comfort, in great part because they did not come from easy times.  But not only that, in Julian’s writings, the earliest existing writings by a woman in the English language, we are reminded that hope does not tend to come from happy, untested thoughts but neither does it just automatically appear as a product of hard times.  Hope is a gift from God – a gift from the Christ, who lived and died and lives again.

And so on this first Sunday of Advent, may hope be much more for you than wishful thinking.  May the hope spoken from Christ on the cross to Julian of Norwich, speak to your heart.  May the hope that Mark Giuliano spoke of, experienced as a hurting community of faith came together to sing songs of faith, speak to our gathering today.  May the learnings that can come from hard times, described by Brene Brown, help us as we learn to find hope.  And may the age-old resilience of the Church in Thessalonica, hopeful amidst persecution, hopeful despite all their idiosyncrasies, encourage your search for hope in times of calm, in times of chaos, and in times of challenge.  May all this be so. Amen.

 

References cited:

Brown, Brene. Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience.  NYC: Random House, 2021.  pp. 88-110.

Giuliano, Mark. “Where we Find Hope”, pp. 68-69 in Hardy, Nacy (ed) Singing a Song of Faith: Daily Reflections for Lent.  Toronto: UCPH, 2007.

Manton, Karen (text) and Muir, Lynne (illustrations/calligraphy). The Gift of Julian of Norwich. Leominster, UK: Gracewing, 2005.

 

© 2024 Rev Greg Wooley, Osoyoos-Oliver United Church Pastoral Charge.

Mark 12: 28-34 - November 24, 2024

 

How many of you are familiar with the term, “elevator speech” or “elevator pitch”?  An elevator pitch is “a brief speech that outlines an idea for a product, service, or project, which could conceivably be delivered in the short time period of an elevator ride”.  In other words, anywhere from 20 seconds to an absolute maximum of one minute.

In today’s gospel reading, Jesus more or less gets asked to give his elevator speech, to identify which of the 613 commandments in the Torah he considered to be most important.  Before hearing his answer, let’s marvel for a bit at the way the gospel of Mark puts the story together.  Mark 11 begins with the triumphal entry to Jerusalem, i.e., Palm Sunday, then Jesus upsets the moneychangers’ tables and then he and the disciples retreat from the city for a bit.  By now, Jesus had clearly caught the attention of powerful enemies, so on his return to the city he was met by a delegation of chief priests, scribes and elders who challenged his authority to say and do what he had been saying and doing.  As we ease into the 12^th chapter of Mark, Jesus tells a parable which first of all captivates the chief priests, scribes and elders then upsets them as they realize that the pointed end of the parable is directed at them.  They left, but following them was a lineup of Jesus’ other opponents.  First the Pharisees ask him about taxes, the “render unto Caesar” dialogue… then the Sadducees ask him tricky questions about divorce and inheritance…  and then (Mark 12: 28) one of the scribes came near.   “[He] heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well he asked Jesus ‘Which commandment is the first of all?’” Or, “gimme your elevator pitch, Jesus.  Show me, specifically, how the core of your mission is connected to our most important sacred texts”.

Jesus, when asked this, is three years into his ministry, he’s in Jerusalem where his opponents are literally lining up to get him, and, as we know from two thousand years away, he is less than one week away from his crucifixion.  The question of the great commandment, as recounted by Mark, comes not at the start of Jesus’ travelling ministry, nor on some random Thursday in September amidst idle banter about this and that.   No, this question and answer are in Holy Week, and as such are among the most important words that would be carried by Jesus’ followers to the cross and the empty tomb and then to their house-church meetings as they struggled to find adequate ways to keep his ministry alive.   In our days of judgmentalism and division, they are STILL the key words.

And to the scribe’s question, (Mark 12: 29-31) “²⁹Jesus answered, ‘The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; ³⁰ you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ ³¹ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.’”  Takes about 20 seconds to say, memorable content, good elevator speech.

The two scriptures linked here played very different roles in Jewish religious life. The first of the two, regarding love of God, comes from the 6^th chapter of Deuteronomy (6:4-5) and was a core part of Jewish devotional practice. “Shema Yisrael (שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל) (“Hear, O Israel”) are the first words of the Shema, a section of the Torah that is the centerpiece of the morning and evening prayer services, encapsulating the monotheistic essence of Judaism.” (Chabad.org) The second commandment, to love one’s neighbour as oneself, comes from the 19^th chapter of Leviticus (19:18), a collection of notes about the fair and ethical treatment of others. The first part of Jesus’ answer, then, was central and read daily, while the second part was what we might call “part of the larger collection”; yet Jesus puts them together as if they were one single sentence, one’s love of God naturally flowing over into tangible expressions of love for others.  

Given this opportunity, Jesus could have chosen any commandment he wanted, or, given the fact that he bent the rules a bit to quote two scriptures rather than just one, he really could have chosen anything from the Psalms or Prophets. Imagine if he’d chosen something pointed against other religions or something reeking of nationalism… but he didn’t. With the freedom to choose anything, Jesus chooses love, and then doubles down with even more love. The first commandment spoke of devotional love expressed for the one, holy, foundational God; the second commandment is a call to expand one’s core concern beyond the interests of self and family and relatives.  Jesus describes a love that goes deep into the heart of God, and a love that reaches out to the right-now needs of others. Love, multifaceted love.

By using the words of the Shema to describe the love one is to have for God, Jesus brings his listeners back to a prayer practice which shapes every day.  And the call to love one’s neighbour as an extension of self-love, to place the needs of the common good on par with or even above one’s own desires, colours the decisions we make numerous times each day and the big structural decisions about how power is held and expressed in society.

Jesus’ answer, his elevator speech, begins with a foundational acknowledgement of our connection with God.  We love God, completely, even as we experience God’s absolute love for us over and over again, breath by breath, sunrise by sunrise.  And in the commandment to love our neighbour as ourselves, we are called to stretch our understanding of just how connected we are to one another.  Think of the various Indigenous understandings of “all my relations,” the sacred interconnection of all life, and you will find yourself on the right track here.

And to take it one step further, Contemplative Theologian Cynthia Bourgeault – who has strong connections here in BC - has memorably stated, “One of the most familiar of Jesus’ teachings is ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ But we almost always hear that wrong [as if he had said]: ‘Love your neighbor as much as [you love] yourself….’ If you listen closely to Jesus however, there is no ‘as much as’ in his admonition. It’s just ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’—as a continuation of your very own being. It’s a complete seeing, that your neighbor is you”. (this is so contrary to the divisive narrative of 2024, I’m going to say it again: “there is no ‘as much as’ in his admonition. It’s just ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’—as a continuation of your very own being.”) That notion from Cynthia, which I first encountered about five years ago, has moved the very core of my beliefs and my approach to life, as I come to understand that every barrier I erect between me and my neighbour is a human construct that is contrary to the heart of God.  That which allows me to label or demean “them”, that which releases me from supporting vulnerable ones under attack because it’s “not my problem”, comes from some source other than God.  I grow to love and be reconciled to my neighbour as I come to believe our essential oneness, and as I express that love, I express my love for God.

On this Reign of Christ Sunday, we think not only of daily living but of God’s big agenda, the new realm spoken of by Christ Jesus governed by justice-embedded love.  To me, the two-fold great commandment carries us from the life we called to live right now, to these new ways Jesus spoke of when he preached about the Kingdom or Kin-dom of God.   Our love of God and love of neighbour give practical grounding for the way we live our lives AND they accustom us to the greater transformative intentions of the Divine.  As I said when introducing myself to you back on September 8^th, when we consider the question, “who is my neighbour?” my experiences over the past forty years of interacting with people from a wide range of occupations, religions, sexual orientations and gender expressions cause me to ask “well, who isn’t?”  If we truly embrace that notion put forward by Cynthia Bourgeault, of myself and my neighbour being continuations of each other, the shaping of life changes completely.

In the work we do together, as Church here in Oliver and Osoyoos and across the Okanagan and Similkameen valleys, may Christ’s two-fold commandment to love God with all we have and love neighbour as self, have the presence, wisdom and urgency it had when first uttered in Jerusalem.  Amen. 

References cited:

Bourgeault, Cynthia.  The Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heart and Mind—A New Perspective on Christ and His Message (Shambhala: 2008), 31-32.  Accessed via the 17 January 2019 daily email of  centerforactionandcontemplation.com

Chabad.org https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/705353/jewish/The-Shema.htm

Kenton, Will. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/elevatorpitch.asp#:

© Rev Greg Wooley, Osoyoos-Oliver United Church Pastoral Charge, 2024.

Mark 12: 38-44 - November 17, 2024

Imagine you are sitting with Jesus, opposite the Temple, people-watching as a variety of folks from all walks of life come and drop their donations into a public offering box.  Jesus points out the gift of a destitute widow, surmising that the two tiny coins she just put into the offering were the end of her resources.  Widows in that culture were often in that position, financially and emotionally.  Having given her all, she is now, literally, penniless.

We know this story by its traditional name, the story of the widow’s mite, a “mite” representing the smallest-value coin of the day, and its traditional interpretation is deeply ingrained in my psyche.  In this interpretation, Jesus seemingly presents the widow as a paragon of generosity, the kind of steward we all should aspire to be.  Others gave gifts thousands of times larger to the temple, yet this gift, so tiny as to be meaningless in covering the temple budget, is held up as exemplary. This widow, literally, gave ‘til it hurt and because of that, her story has been the foundation of countless financial campaigns by Churches and Christian charities.  

The thing is, though: if I hear the story of the widow’s mite as a story that encourages us, too, to give ‘til it hurts, I am hearing something that Jesus never said.  This story is found in both the gospel of Mark and the gospel of Luke (21:1-4), and I’ll share Luke’s somewhat simpler version:

Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box. ² He also saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. ³ He said, “I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. ⁴ For they all offered their gifts out of their wealth. But she, out of her poverty, put in everything she had to live on.”

And Jesus leaves it at that.  He makes an observation here, but with scant comment:  he lifts up the relative value of the widow’s gift, as she basically gave 100% of what she had, but does not proceed to say “go and do likewise” to his audience or to generations of churchgoers since then.  He could have, but he didn’t.  Similarly, Jesus does not make a big show by popping across the street to personally congratulate the women on her generosity.   As told by both Luke and Mark, Jesus notes what the widow has done but the emotional tone of the words is very neutral, we can’t really tell if he’s happy about it or not.  What is clear is that Jesus, while seeing and acknowledging her gift out of scarcity, especially in comparison with gifts far larger given out of surplus, does not use her as an example for other poor folks to follow in their giving.   While not wanting to double-down on the widow, her contribution to make the Temple even grander while the needs of people just like her were ignored was part of a system flawed and broken.  We can imagine Jesus shaking his head, jaw clenched, moved by the plight of the woman while seething at the inaction of the Temple authorities.

A wide range of Biblical scholars have written about this difference between how the Church has tended to hear this and what Jesus actually said.  One of these is Emma Crossen, a Lutheran stewardship resource person, who writes, “The popular reading of the widow’s mite says that Jesus was pleased by the widow’s offering. Yet, when we consider how Jesus felt about serving the poor, especially widows, we can imagine that the sight of the widow giving her last coin was not pleasant at all”.  The temple was supposed to serve the poor and marginalized, not the other way around.  So when he sees the widow donating all that she had, to this institution that is part of her oppression, Jesus scolds “the religious leaders who perpetuate a religious system in which it would be acceptable for a widow to lose everything she has for the sake of the temple”.  We don’t know whether the widow felt pressured into making this donation, or if some other factor is at work here, but we do know that something is seriously wrong with this picture.  

Although recent Bible commentators are quite correct to point out that Jesus does not come out and say, “do ye likewise” to Church givers, calling us to sacrificial giving as demonstrated by the widow, he does state how valuable her gift was, and he does so just days before his own sacrificial gift on the cross.  And unlike the Temple leaders, for whom this woman was basically invisible, Jesus SAW her.  Seeing those who were generally disregarded by others is a recurring theme in the Bible: The Holy One sees potentials that others do not, like entrusting the future of the Israelites to Abram and Sarai, the call stories of nearly all the prophets and disciples, or naming young Mary to be the mother of the Christ Child. Watching as people made their temple donations, Jesus vaguely noticed what others were doing, but specifically sees what this woman did, and in so doing he speaks to the heart of all who have few resources but have continued to give for the good of others, out of the limelight.  Jesus repeatedly sees those regarded as invisible and unimportant by society, and he does so once more in this encounter.  And if I were to imagine Jesus’ saying to those who have given more than they had to give, “you didn’t have to do that – but thank you” I wouldn’t be far wrong – such is the heart of God in Christ.

Though Jesus does not call us to “do likewise” upon seeing this heartbreakingly large gift by the widow, he does respect her dignity, and lifts up the value of her tiny gift.  Having worked my whole adult life in the Church and other non-profit organizations, I hear Jesus do something really important here: he calls us and the Church and all volunteer organizations to never look down on small gifts just because they are small.  (I remember learning this as a kid, going around on Hallowe’en with a UNICEF box & knowing that those little gifts would add up!) Whether it’s the person who has difficulty getting up in the morning volunteering for a community venture for a couple of hours, the person whose work hours just got cut in half choosing to maintain their charitable donations, or the person who finds it difficult to state their opinions publicly signing a petition and not just remaining anonymous, small things matter… and based on everything I know about Jesus, I can confidently say that he would never minimize the heartfelt contributions of those who have little to give.

Before leaving this scripture, I suggest one more thing, and that is to look at the power dynamics of this encounter and how that relates to the Church in this day and age.  

For centuries, the Church in the era of “Christendom” held an undue amount of prestige and influence.  We were very much like the ones on the entitled side of the ledger in today’s reading: the wealthy ones, the temple authorities, even the Temple itself.   But in our current context, in 2024, I don’t think that’s where the Church fits anymore.  While I wouldn’t for a moment equate the situation of the mainline Church in the northern hemisphere with the desperate poverty of the widow, I gotta say, we’re closer to the marginality of the widow than we are to the opulence of the temple-keepers.  And while that might sound negative, there are advantages to be had when one approaches the margins.     

While we lament that the Church of today is much smaller and less influential than it was sixty years ago – and within that, we do lament quite rightly that we are less well-positioned to share the inclusive, engaged, compassionate and courageous story of Jesus Christ with subsequent generations – our smaller, less highfalutin self may now embody a more legitimate and Christ-connected kind of authority.  As we yearn to witness to the life-giving love of Jesus, as we seek ways to live out our new United Church vision of “Deep Spirituality, Bold Discipleship and Daring Justice,” let us never forget that God does not turn away from us just because we are smaller than we used to be, any more than Jesus would have devalued the contribution of the impoverished widow because her donation didn’t line up with the big donors.  In his preaching and teaching, even in his death at the hands of those who held sacred and secular power, Jesus repeatedly turned toward those with more meagre resources as the ones who more easily understood his path and his promises.

As a smaller player, we, as a denomination in our 100^th year and as the United Church congregations in Oliver and Osoyoos, may have greater nimbleness in responding to community needs, we may have gained a new ability to say “we can’t do everything but we can do this thing.”  So part of the task before Shannon and me, as we relate to these communities, is to remain present when Churches of the south Okanagan and social agencies and people of good will talk about how we take care of one another.  Even in our smaller version, as followers of Jesus it is still our work to do. As we do what we can, I feel the encouragement of the living Christ, who welcomes our best efforts, whether those are big actions with widespread impact, or small actions that make life just a bit easier for someone who needs to know that God loves them and cares what happens to them.

In the story of the widow’s mite, we may hear an echo of guilt because we are so used to hearing that refrain: you could do more, you should do more.   But to me, this is not primarily that kind of story; in addition to its critique of those who loved their power and influence more than they loved serving their neighbour’s needs, it’s a story of a woman who was basically invisible in her society being seen by Jesus, and her contribution honoured, whether it actually solved a problem or contributed to one.  As we find our place in the world, whether that’s a reshaping of the old familiar central place once held by the mainline Church or a newly embraced, more peripheral place, may we experience the robust, encouraging love of Christ: focusing our efforts on that which is doable, embracing what we can do, and helping us to believe that in Christ, there are times when more than we can ask or imagine is very, very possible.   In Christ we pray, Amen.

Resources cited or consulted:

Blair, Patrick. https://faith-finances.com/blog/2022/12/6/whats-the-real-story-the-widows-mite-or-the-temples-might

Crossen, Emma. https://www.gathermagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/2015SummerBS_Session2.pdf

Penley, Paul. https://www.reenactingtheway.com/blog/the-widows-mite-good-or-bad-example-of-giving

Rippentrop, Jan. https://politicaltheology.com/the-politics-of-widows-gifts-mark-1238-44/

Weber-Johnson, Erin. https://churchanew.org/blog/posts/erin-weber-johnson-upending-the-parable-of-the-widows-mite

© 2024 Rev Greg Wooley, Osoyoos-Oliver United Church Pastoral Charge.

1 Kings 17: 8-16 - November 10, 2024

 (today’s sermon by Rev Greg is accompanied by several images from https://www.freebibleimages.org/photos/elijah-widow/ under a Creative Commons Share alike license)

Our United Church Creed begins with the words, “We are not alone, we live in God’s world” and it ends with the words “In life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us. We are not alone. Thanks be to God”.  The first words and the last words are about God, present to us.

There are times in every life when we need to feel that sense of divine accompaniment, whether it’s a sense of a personally present God, or the loving presence of others who make hope real for us.  If you’re in the war zones of Gaza or Ukraine, you need to know that.  If you’re still cleaning up from a Florida Hurricane, you need to know that.  If you’re grieving, if personal struggles are about to overwhelm you, if you’re stunned by the US election results, you need to know that.  And our forebears knew this as well, as we recall all the impacts of 66,000 Canadian and Newfoundland soldiers killed in World War I and 45,000 more in World War II, among nearly two hundred million civilians and soldiers killed worldwide in wars since 1914, In those times when anguish and despair seem to have the upper hand, we need to know that God is with us, we are not alone.

The powerful story we just heard from 1^st Kings 17 speaks of such a time: there was the prophet Elijah, a widow and her son, there was a desperate need for food, and there was endless provision by a concerned, personal, miraculous God.   Such stories remind us that anguish is not a new thing.

As always, there are details in the story that suggest something bigger.  The location, Zarephath, is on the Mediterranean in the land of Sidon & Tyre, where the religious rivalries with the Israelites were fierce.  It is a story in which patriarchy plays a large role.  And it’s a story of bread, which connects it to all other Biblical stories of bread.   

Some day, there’s a good sermon to be preached about all of that, but not today. Today I am drawn to stay in the intimate, deeply emotional space that contains the prophet, and the widowed mother and her child, and the invisible yet palpable presence of a loving God.     

Lisa Appelo is a Christian blogger; she is also a widow and single mom to seven children, and as such understands this scripture story firsthand. retells the story like so:

“When Elijah arrived at the Zarephath city gates, he spotted a young widow gathering sticks.

“You can almost hear the despair in this single mom’s words as she told Elijah she had ‘only a handful of flour in a jar and a little olive oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it – and die.’ (1 Kings 17:12)

This was a women “at the end of her hope.”

“Elijah answered: ‘Do not be afraid.’ He instructed her to make a small loaf for him first and afterward, some for herself and her son with this promise from God: the flour jar would not become empty nor the oil jug run dry until the day the Lord sent rain again”. And so it was.

In both the request and the response, we hear a sense of grim reality.  The widow had no further resources in sight and had resolved herself to her own death and, heartbreakingly, to the death of her child; and into that space comes this seemingly misplaced request for her to offer hospitality one last time.  As Lisa puts it, this was a single mom at the end of her hope.

Yet amidst this stark picture of hopelessness, there was hospitality – and there was provision.

We note that the hospitality was not, initially at least, based in her faith in Yahweh God.   In fact, at one point she refers to “the Lord your God” (verse 12): i.e., “Your God, Elijah, not my God”.  So even though we have here Elijah, one of the renowned prophets of Israel, it’s the willingness of this woman outside the Faith to enter into the sacred power of hospitality that opens the door to the ongoing provision of flour and oil.

It is impossible to over-estimate the importance of hospitality in that part of the world, then or now.  When someone was thirsty, you gave them a drink, when they needed food or shelter, you provided that. There was no “if you had extra to share”, it was simply understood - even when you figured that this nub of flour and splash of oil, was going to be your last meal.  So we have this understanding that to live in this world is integrally connected to the act of sharing – that same sacred space named by Jesus in emphasizing the commandment to “love our neighbour as ourselves.”  I remain troubled that Elijah asked for food when things were so dire and yet, in the quiet, desperate moment these three people share, there is also a sense of Divine beauty.

As we sit with these three, we do well to acknowledge that this same exact type of despair is experienced daily, around the world in 2024 by people who have nothing left, people who, like this widow, had no family or community supports to act as a safety net. Every large news story, about people who have been pushed to the end of their hope, by famine or by food insecurity or by the cruelty of people or governments who have labelled them as “problematic”, contain thousands of these smaller tragic spaces, like the one inhabited by this mom and her son and Elijah.  As we consider their hunger, we hear sobering statistics from the World Health Organization indicating that roughly 1 person in 11 on this planet – some 733 million souls – face hunger on a daily basis; in Africa, the fraction is more like 1 person out of 5.   As we approach Remembrance Day tomorrow, we are confronted by the reality of 110 wars ongoing in our world, right now; at the end of last year, there were 117 million displaced people, refugees and other landless people caught by war or persecution or famine.  If we break those kinds of figures down to tiny little groupings, like the widow of Zarephath making what she thought would be her last meal, we get a sense of how these things work: there are the great big reasons, and the intense, personal, heartbreaking results.

We picture these small spaces in the world today, where a glimmer of hope is needed, and as we do so we lift up the importance of the work done by human rights and humanitarian relief agencies, some directly through Churches and faith-based charities, others through a network of non-governmental agencies and visionary non-profits.  The need is widespread and urgent, and there are pathways to alleviating the immediate need while also addressing the need for far-reaching systemic change.   And in addition to these practical supports, there is also the need for holy hope, and today we reaffirm our belief in a God who does not leave us to our own devices. 

Even in the hardest times of life, there is grace: something small, unexpected and life-affirming, often accompanied by a gift of food, or an offer of help.   In the reading from 1^st Kings, the solution to the widow’s problem is not grand or showy, it’s not a new house and servants and rich foods aplenty.  As the story proceeds, we see that she is not shielded from tragedy, there is simply the pledge that there will be enough flour and oil to get her through this day, and then the next day, and then the next day.  As she prepares and shares one last life-giving meal – a meal she thought would be her final meal, ever - she receives the gift of grace, one day at a time, signified and sealed in the provision of bread.

We share this morning, in a sacred ritual that goes back some 2000 years: breaking the bread, sharing the fruit of the vine.  This act of sharing is a connection between us, and is also an invitation for the Holy Spirit to find a home here, as part of our ongoing commitment to be communities of faith where the grace of our God has the room to act, whether times are good or frighteningly bad.  This act of sharing connects us with all our siblings who are, for whatever reason, feeling unsettled, hopeless, hungry in body or spirit on this day. As we feed on these symbols of grace, as we open ourselves to the God who has accompanied humanity through war and famine, earthquake, fire and flood, may we invite life and hope and provision and peace to be with us and between us and to be mobilized through us, to embody God’s own hospitality and grace and hope reaching into the world around us. Amen, and Amen.

 

 

References cited or consulted:

Apello, Lisa. https://lisaappelo.com/when-you-need-hope-elijah-and-the-widow-of-zarephath/ and https://lisaappelo.com/our-story/

Claasens, Juliana. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-32-2/commentary-on-1-kings-178-16-3

Gehrz, Chris – quoting Gaudino, Rebecca - https://pietistschoolman.com/2020/03/30/the-with-god-life-the-widow-of-zarephath/

Geneva Academy, https://geneva-academy.ch/galleries/today-s-armed-conflicts

https://www.gotquestions.org/Elijah-widow.html

Government of Canada, Veterans Affairs. https://www.veterans.gc.ca/en/remembrance/wars-and-conflicts/second-world-war

https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/timeline-of-20th-and-21st-century-wars#:~:text=Conflict%20took%20place%20in%20every,number%20is%20likely%20far%20higher.

Kadari, Tamar. https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/widow-of-zarephath-midrash-and-aggadah

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/deaths-in-armed-conflicts-by-country?time=2023

https://www.rescue.org/article/what-happening-children-and-pregnant-mothers-gaza

UNHCR. https://www.unhcr.org/about-unhcr/who-we-are/figures-glance

Weber, Mike. https://musingsandwonderment.blog/2020/11/02/an-unlikely-saint-the-widow-of-zarephath/

World Health Organization, https://www.who.int/news/item/24-07-2024-hunger-numbers-stubbornly-high-for-three-consecutive-years-as-global-crises-deepen--un-report

 

© 2024 Rev Greg Wooley, Osoyoos – Oliver United Church Pastoral Charge.  

Jeremiah 32 - October 27, 2024 and November 3, 2024

preached by Rev Shannon Mang at the Heritage-History Workshop Sundays in Oliver on October 27 and Osoyoos on November 3. 

When I worked at Living Spirit United Church (Calgary), the administrator came to work with her little noisy, and very friendly terrier named Rosie. Rosie made friends with everyone who came into the building. Rosie and I were good friends, but I was not a friend who would feed her. Unlike others in that community, I would not share my lunch or bring her treats—but that never stopped Rosie from expecting that she would one day take our relationship to the next level of intimacy—food sharing. It never happened, but in all the months that we both went to work together prior to the pandemic, Rosie was convinced that I would—one day give her food. Rosie became my symbol of how “hope springs eternal”.

 

These are days when hope is hard to find. We had friends from Lacombe AB visiting in October and we did a few wine tastings with lovely, friendly and chatty wine tasting staff. One of the tasting staff went  into some detail about the deep challenges facing the wineries. He commented that if we have favourite wineries- to stock up because many of the estate wineries will not weather this storm of circumstances. These difficulties resulting from unpredictable weather are also being faced by the growers of fruit and vegetables in our valley. The changing weather recently had communities in BC who have suffered repeated flooding, most recently from October’s atmospheric river events. They are asking questions about the sustainability of their community’s infrastructure. And on a personal note, Greg and I now share the communal anxiety in this province about the threat of fire being a clear and present danger every year.

We are living in an age of fear—and we are in good company. Our ancestors in the faith have often lived in ages of fear, and they have given us a legacy of hope in the midst of fear.

The context of today’s text from the prophet Jeremiah was a time when Babylon invaded Jerusalem and left a trail of death and destruction in its path, and had the city of Jerusalem under siege. Jeremiah was a prophet who was called into God’s service at a young age and whose life’s work was : “to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant”. At his point in his story he was imprisoned within the walls of the king’s palace. King Zedekiah had been shortsighted and refused to heed Jeremiah’s warnings, to the point of imprisoning him--- then Jeremiah’s warnings came to pass and the king and all of Judah were at war.

From the prison and in the middle of the siege, Jeremiah did something completely unexpected after receiving a message from God. God let the prophet know that it was a good time to buy a plot of land from his cousin even though the enemy was at the gate of the city and was starving the people. It was clear to all that once the siege broke it was very likely that the population would either be killed or taken into slavery and deported to the land of the victors. Since God had told him to expect his cousin to make the offer, when his cousin did show up to offer Jeremiah the plot of land, he saw it as a sign that God would reverse Israel’s fortunes. It was a sign that God had neither forgotten Israel nor left it to its own devices.

Commanding that the deeds be put in clay pots, Jeremiah took steps necessary to assure that the deeds of purchase would outlast war and destruction. Jeremiah followed all the prescribed legal procedures, including having it witnessed publicly. With the transaction in public view, Jeremiah was also conducting a “sermon” for all to see. It was a way of expressing his hope, his desire, his trust in God, that things would indeed get better, even if he did not live to experience better days on his land. His purchase was not just for himself, but for future generations. His purchase signaled to the nation that their God, who had brought warnings of destruction through the prophet, was also a God who still claimed them as God’s people and believed in their restoration.

From Oct 27- [Oliver United Church has a history of doing the hard work of “seeing the signs of the times” and being proactive considering hard realities.  Jeremiah’s call was to publicly purchase a plot of land in the middle of a siege. Oliver United Church’s call was to sell this much-loved building that has held the life of this congregation for most of its century-long life. You celebrated 100+ years of Oliver United Church in Dec 2022, and you are in an “in between time” now in a changed space, but still housed in your former church.]

From Nov 3- [Osoyoos United Church has a history of doing the hard work of “seeing the signs of the times” and being proactive considering hard realities.  Jeremiah’s call was to publicly purchase a plot of land in the middle of a siege. Osoyoos United Church’s call was to serve immediate needs in the community: you created the local Food Bank and successful rummage sales turned into a weekly event, and then into the Thrift Store that continues to have a tremendous impact on Osoyoos.]

Today in our interactive time, my hope is to learn from you what the most significant milestones have been in in the life of this congregation from inside your skin. I have been reading your history and I’ve only started to look at your large collection of photo albums---and that is a gift. Today I want to hear from you as the continuing presence of Osoyoos United Church. I am interested in having you share at your tables memories that have had an impact on you.

Lets continue to do the hard work that the Prophet Jeremiah calls us to, looking at our history of faithful service and planning for a future of continuing faithful service.

May it be so.

 (c) Rev Shannon Mang, Osoyoos-Oliver United Church Pastoral Charge, 2024.