Mark 14: 3-9 - Sunday, July 6, 2025

“Anthem” is a 1992 song by Leonard Cohen which begins,

“The birds they sing at the break of day; start again - I heard them say.
Don’t dwell on what has passed away or what is yet to be”

And then, in the chorus,

“Ring the bells that still can ring, forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack, a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”

Many of us have lived with the understanding that cracks are not allowed in our lives, that we had to be perfect and ever-improving, and never weak, vulnerable or broken - not if we had any chance or measuring up to our peers, our selves, even to God.  The message may have been received from a parent, a teacher, a coach, a boss, a spouse, or the insistence of perfection may be more of a self-imposed sentence. 

The thought that imperfections are embarrassing and to be hidden, gets in the way of a full relationship with those we love and, indeed, a full connection with our gracious and loving God. It’s a notion that needs to be countered. Leonard Cohen’s words, following Jesus’ words about the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, correctly proclaim that each day is a fresh gift, so do not dwell on the past or fret about the future. And the chorus of his song, following the Japanese tradition of Kintsugi, importantly declares that the imperfections, the cracks, are essential to being fully human, for the crack is how the light gets in.

As you heard in today’s Interim Ministry Moment, the 2025 annual meeting of the Pacific Mountain Region took place just over a month ago in Nanaimo, and its theme was “Cracked Open.” Onscreen you will see the logo that was in front of us throughout the gathering, and when I first saw that logo I immediately thought of Leonard Cohen’s profoundly helpful words about the crack in something being how the light gets in.  But notice, that in this logo the energetic direction is outward, not inward.  The view isn’t from inside, as the light of God’s wisdom shines on us, the view is from the outside, as this jar is breaking into pieces.  Leonard Cohen’s words remain helpful, but there’s something more going on here.

In Nanaimo, we kept coming back to this image and metaphor, of being “cracked open”.  This morning you heard the scriptural basis, from the 14^th chapter of Mark’s gospel, a scene from the final days of Jesus’ life:  “While Jesus was eating, a woman came in with an alabaster jar full of a very expensive perfume made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on Jesus' head”. And while some of the witnesses to this were upset by this act of anointing, Jesus countered them, saying “Leave her alone! Why are you bothering her? She has done a fine and beautiful thing for me” and the clincher: “wherever the gospel is preached all over the world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.”

Somehow, in my reading of this scripture over the years, almost always in Holy Week services, I have pictured the ointment being poured from a jar which had a lid or stopper: remove the stopper, pour out the perfume/ointment, return the stopper.   But that’s not what happens here.  Here, we have a jar containing a substance so precious and so vulnerable once exposed to the elements, that it needs to be in a sealed, single-use container.  So in order to anoint Jesus, the woman has to crack the jar open, as one would break open an ampoule containing a single dose of medication.  The jar, then, is only important because of its fragrant, passionate contents.

The Rev. Canon Dr. Stephanie Spellers, our guest speaker in Nanaimo, wrote a book entitled, The Church Cracked Open: Disruption, Decline and New Hope for Beloved Community was our guest speaker for the weekend. She is one of the Episcopal Church’s leading thinkers around 21st-century ministry and mission, and is a clear, energetic presenter who has a great respect for the United Church of Canada, and the religious context of British Columbia.   And a quick note: in this sermon, my recounting of Stephanie’s presentation to us in Nanaimo is intermingled with my interpretation of it, so I hope and pray that nothing I say here misrepresents her line of thought.  

Stephanie asserts, correctly, that things are broken. Racism is out of control, most pointedly in her nation, the US, but a problem everywhere. control; the planet is basically on fire due to climate change; and the Church of the northern hemisphere, as she put it is “deep in the valley of dry bones”.

When things are falling apart, what are we to do, as Church, as the Body of Christ?  As people of faith, one of our starting points is to turn to scripture, seek wisdom in our faith history to help us address this mess.  When Stephanie turned to scripture, she found what she terms “a bold sister with an alabaster jar” and as the Church, Stephanie implores us to understand that “we have this jar, we ARE this jar” and that we while we have protected the container, its importance is that it contains “precious oil.”  This observation lands hard with me, for I know that over decades of ministry too much time and energy has been on preserving and protecting the container, the Church itself and all the things we do to keep it alive, and not enough time freeing the Holy Spirit to do what she will.

If we pause, and honestly assess the situation in 2025, we know that a broken world needs every bit of Christ’s holy, human, transformative love. We need to let ourselves crack wide open so that love can do its work, unrestrained, using every resource we have at our disposal. For Jesus calls us to be all-in, in our “selfless…commitment to the other’s flourishing and the flourishing of the whole world.  I will be as invested in your flourishing as I am in my own.” 

All this, yes, calls for courage and risk, for in that act of breaking open our priorities and processes as Church, the way we use the influence we do have, it is unlikely we could reassemble the pieces in a way that would resemble the way things were before.  But to be honest: what is there to lose?  The numbers for mainline Churches, across the northern hemisphere, are not good, and holding on to what is, is getting us nowhere. The number of people identifying as “nones” (those who never have had a religious affiliation) and “dones” (who were once Church involved, but have withdrawn from Church life) is growing rapidly, especially in Canada.  In 1971, only 4% claimed to have no religion, but by 2001 that was up to 17% and then by 2021, 35%.  This is even more pronounced in BC where a full 50% of the population has no religious affiliation.

Stephanie reminded us that in the Christological hymn of Philippians 2: 4-9, Jesus “humbled himself” – he stepped away from his Divine privilege in order to become human and serve others. As his ongoing body in the world we must have that same orientation to service, that same humility.  In a world that loves and promotes self-centeredness as a religion unto itself, we are called to counter that self-centrism with the powerful love of Jesus. In Christ and with Christ we strive, for abundant life enjoyed by all humanity.   Adopting this goal – abundant life for ALL – is one way to challenge narratives of decline and despair.  For if we place our hope and our efforts, not in rebuilding something that looks just like what we had before, i.e. reassembling the cracked alabaster jar, we can form just, beloved communities that Jesus would recognize as his own.

In the manner that the unnamed woman – unnamed yet remember for eternity – cracked open the jar and released the fragrance of divine love, we must be willing to crack open all that we have understood about Church life.  We must meet the current situation with fidelity and courage, for the work can be disheartening and at times heartbreaking. The power of Empire, the power of self-centrism, is strong and getting stronger. Yet to allow ourselves as the Body of Christ to crack open, has the promise of Christ’s love at work in the world, and when I imagine that my heart soars.

The call to beloved community, open and vulnerable, is a beautiful calling indeed. As Stephanie Spellers stated in her final address to us, “what a time to be the Church.  What a time to be a Christian.”   May blessings be upon her ministry, and ours. Amen.

References:

Cohen, Leonard. “Anthem” © 1992, Stranger Music Inc. accessed at https://genius.com/Leonard-cohen-anthem-lyrics

Dewmartin, Kate. “Cracks are how the light gets in – Kintsugi and grief.” https://www.craftcourses.com/blog/cracks-are-how-the-light-gets-in-kintsugi-grief

Pacific Mountain Regional Council, 2025 Regional Gathering/AGM. https://pacificmountain.ca/administration/regional-general-meetings/pmrc-agm-2025/

Spellers, Stephanie. https://churchcrackedopen.com/

© 2025 Rev Greg Wooley, Osoyoos-Oliver United Church Pastoral Charge…with a huge shout-out to Rev Canon Dr Stephanie Spellers!

Galatians 3: 23-29 - Canada Day Sunday, June 29, 2025

 When I was twelve years old, I fell in love…

…with the music of Stompin’ Tom Connors. 

At first, I thought his whole schtick was a joke:  this tall, skinny guy in a cowboy hat, cowboy boots and a leather vest, pounding his boot into a sheet of plywood as percussion to go along with his singing and guitar… but that inaccurate first impression did not last long.  For as soon as I listened to his lyrics, he fanned the flames of Canadian pride in my young soul.  His songs are so local and so accessible: they’re about Canadian heroes, Canadian places, and his own experiences of tough times, and a few of his 300 songs became Canadian icons: the Hockey Song, the theme for CBC’s Marketplace, Sudbury Saturday Night, Bud the Spud.  His Canadian patriotism was the real deal, built on a true sense of pride in this land and a recognition that for him, singing songs from Nashville about Texas made no sense at all.  For honestly, where else would one hear lyrics like, “Oh the girls are out to bingo and the boys are getting’ stinko, we think no more of INCO on a Sudbury Saturday Night?”

Thus far, the year 2025 has been a challenging one for Canada, and my inner proud Canadian got awakened – for the first time, really, since those days when Stompin Tom told me why I should be proud.  So I hope you enjoy today’s service, with hymns and prayers from across the land, an extra bit of Canadiana when I think it’s both appropriate and necessary.

The lesson we heard today, from the 3^rd chapter of Paul’s letter to the Galatians, speaks about foundations and nuance and inclusion, important things for us to consider on the cusp of Canada Day 2025.  As someone with deep Jewish roots, well-honed rhetorical skills, and a passionate new relationship with the risen Christ, Paul needed to make sense of the good news of Jesus Christ without snubbing the Jewish faith that was so important to him and to Jesus.  He needed to lift up these two truths, at once

Paul describes the law of Moses as “our guardian, until Christ came”.  That word “guardian” is sometimes translated “tutor” or “schoolmaster”, the kind of private instructor and mentor that the wealthier households in Galatia may have employed.  This teacher, Paul writes, “protected us until we could be made right with God through faith”. This image of a protective teacher reminds me what it was like when we were parenting young children, and what it will be like for Shannon and me as a grandchild enters our lives this summer. With a child, one encourages their innate sense of awe and wonder and curiosity, but also teaches the basics, like, don’t touch the hot oven, don’t take your sibling’s favourite toy, do say please and thank you, two plus two equals four.  Foundations of fact and safety and healthy relationships get laid in preparation to give a base from which to engage the nuanced grey areas that arise as one moves through life. In the Apostle Paul’s metaphor of the Law acting as our guardian, then, knowing rules and laws like the ten commandments remains important, but that is not the end of the story.

As followers of Jesus, we inherit the age-old wisdom of the Hebrew Scriptures, and to that we add a relationship with Jesus Christ and his loving, forgiving, inclusive grace.   Jesus repeatedly brought his life and his words back to love: love of God, love of neighbour, loving one another as God loves us, understanding that once you get right down to it, God is love.  In Christ, that love is both holy and emerging, a love we can count on and which is adaptive.  A framework where everything is either entirely good or entirely bad with nothing in between, is not adequate for humans trying to love one another amidst life’s complexities, for it leaves no room for nuance, no room for circumstance, or growth, or forgiveness, or grace. And in Christ, as we learn how to love, barriers come down.  In today’s reading, Paul put it this way: "“There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.” 

On this Sunday when I affirm some of the qualities we strive for as Canadians, Paul calls us toward inclusive, both/and thinking.  The Law of Moses sets a clear and important foundation, and then our task as humans is to figure out the greyscale, the nuance between the absolutes of black and white. In Christ, we engage context and circumstance and change.  And while I know that Canada is well short of being Utopia, with some pockets of particular nastiness that do seem to be getting louder, I am so relieved to live in a place where we can still speak of diversity, equity and inclusion as things we strive for.  When I first heard the nauseating notion that Canada would just love to become the 51^st state, I was offended, and I so wished that Stompin’ Tom was still alive to write some real barn-burner songs about it, but it was more than merely taking offense. In the constant barrage of aggressive words toward Canada and Panama and Greenland, the childish renaming of the Gulf of Mexico, the targeting of Spanish speakers and people of colour, the hurtful denial of anything beyond two genders, there is something both sad and alarming.  This approach speaks of an inability of that governing regime for reasoned, mature thought, so much so that the ability to hold contrasting positions in tension not only went out the window, it got trampled, tagged for deportation, and treated as if it were the enemy.  As a proud Canadian and as a Minister of The United Church of Canada, that all-or-nothing, get-rid-of-the-objectors nonsense is something I want no part of. The style and content of all of that, is completely outside of the ideals I have grown up as a Canadian.

I love living in a place where broad engagement is part of our best self, where it is still possible, sometimes at least, to wrestle with ideas.  Whether we agree or disagree isn’t the issue, because north of the 49^th expressing thoughts other than those of the grand poohbah doesn’t get your university’s funding withdrawn, your TV and radio stations silenced, or your immigration status cancelled.  As a nation and, yes, as the United Church we get it wrong a lot of the time, but the goals of hearing one another – and respecting one another – and recognizing that we get better and better as our rainbow of ethnic, religious and gender diversity gets broader and brighter – are things that will make us stronger.  At our best, we deal with nuance and complexity and difference really well, and continuing to strive for that must remain central to our identity as a nation and as a Church.  And that openness to difference, that desire to figure things out in respectful ways that benefit the common good, is nothing short of the will of God.

Before moving to our next hymn, I invite you to join with me in a time of prayer for Canada.  This prayer, by a Manitoba Mennonite worship leader named Carol Penner, celebrates and prays for this beautiful land on which we are privileged to live.  Let us pray:

Thank you God for this piece of the world,
a slice of land broad and wide, blessed with rivers and great lakes, wide skies and great forests, high mountains and gracious plains, beautiful from sea to sea to sea.

Thank you for letting us live in this land, even though we do not own it;
this land is your land, which we use in trust for future generations. Thank you for its rich history, which includes Aboriginal and Metis and Inuit peoples.  Give us wisdom as we continue to work on issues of land use and ownership with these First Nations.

Thank you for our system of government, for the right to speak freely, and to elect our leaders. Thank you for the freedom of religion and conscience that we enjoy.

Thank you for universal health care, and a social safety net, even though not all are caught by it, and not all dwell in safety.  O God, we want a country that is the best it can be, a home for all, welcoming refugees and newcomers, sharing this wealthy country with the world.

Bless our leaders, our Prime Minister and all members of parliament;
guide their steps, and help us use our voice to guide them
as they make difficult and far-reaching decisions.

We thank you today for our home and native land,
thank you for giving us a home here, where we live in peace and security. 

God keep our land, Canada, keep it strong and free,
keep it safe and beautiful for future generations.  Amen. 

References:

Connors, Stompin Tom. “Sudbury Saturday Night.” © 1967, Anthem Music. Accessed at https://lyrics.lyricfind.com/lyrics/stompin-tom-connors-sudbury-saturday-night

Henrich, Sarah. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-12-3/commentary-on-galatians-323-29-3

Penner, Carol. https://leadinginworship.com/

Prest, Stewart. https://theconversation.com/canadas-fight-with-trump-isnt-just-economic-its-existential-246619

© 2025 Rev Greg Wooley, Osoyoos-Oliver United Church Pastoral Charge

1Kings 19: 8 - 15 - Sunday, June 22, 2025

 a time to honour the Indigenous Day of Prayer and National Indigenous Peoples' Day

19^th century Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier, paraphrasing today’s scripture from 1^st Kings, memorably described the voice of God as the “Still, small voice of calm.”

What a wonderful description of the holy heart of God. We come close to the divine presence within when we become quiet enough to sense that our heartbeat, and God’s heartbeat, the heartbeat of the entire created order, are the same thing.  The still, small voice of calm, which may be heard when we quiet our own self-talk and the endless banter of our opinionated world, unifies us with God and with everything.

In my personal story, there was a time when my survival depended on learning how to quiet myself enough to hear the still small voice of calm.  It was late in 1999 when my willingness to allow the insistent and never-ending lineup of unfinished tasks to demand my heart and soul 24/7 caught up with me.  Through a combination of strategies, supports and a rebuilt understanding of my life’s purpose before God, I learned how to tell the constant chatter of my psyche to chill out and wait its turn. A new trust in the soul-affirming stillness of God was the key.  Life would still have demands insistently tugging on my sleeve, but I no longer believed that my human value would be measured by the quantity and quality of tasks I had completed. Even in times of tumult, I knew the love of God, the still, small voice of calm.

In our faith history, we heard a reading today from 1^st Kings in which Elijah most definitely needed a break.  As with all of the Israelite prophets, he was used to having people upset with him, but this was worse. Growing religious tensions in the land, fuelled by King Ahab and Queen Jezebel and their love of the fertility god, Baal, had dropped the prophet into a bubbling cauldron of rivalry and hatred.  This erupted in a fiery and gory scene, and the extinguishing of the priests of Ba’al and Elijah needed to hide in the hills. The prophet desperately needed God’s guidance on whether it was now time for him to just be safe, and stop being God’s messenger, or if God had further need of him. And then this happened, as described in scripture:

The Lord’s word came to him and said, “Why are you here, Elijah?”

Elijah, speaking with a combination of desperation and cognitive distortion, explained how he was the only one left who had remained faithful to God.

The Lord said, “Go out and stand at the mountain before the Lord”

A very strong wind tore through the mountains and broke apart the stones …but the Lord wasn’t in the wind.  After the wind, there was an earthquake, but the Lord wasn’t in the earthquake.  After the earthquake, there was a fire, but the Lord wasn’t in the fire.  After the fire, there was a sound. Thin.  Quiet.  [the “still, small voice of calm”]

When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his coat [and] went out and stood at the cave’s entrance. A voice came to him [once more] and said, “Why are you here, Elijah?”

God queries Elijah about his purpose – “why are you here, Elijah?” - then demonstrates how the voice of God is often to be heard, not in the fearsome uproar, but in the stillness.  And then, having demonstrated this powerful, silent, holy presence, God asks again: “why are you here, Elijah?”  What do you seek, here in the mountains?  What do you need in order to re-engage the needs of the people?  Will you know next time, to listen for the silence when the noise is overwhelming?   These questions of discernment are an important part of our interim ministry time with you here, as you and we together discern God’s calling for now and the future.  To reset the question from God to Elijah, we wonder with God, “why are we here?”

So: this scripture of the still small voice has a personal connection for me, an important role in our Judaeo-Christian faith history, and an enduring place in our ministry here in the south Okanagan.  In addition to these, there is one more connection I’d like to share with this reading from the 1^st book of Kings.

As already mentioned, today’s worship service follows the Indigenous Day of Prayer, and the National Indigenous Peoples’ Day.  We have lived in Cree and Saulteaux territory in Saskatchewan, in treaty 7 lands of the Stoney Nakoda and other first peoples in Canmore, and now, on the lands of the Okanagan Nation Alliance.  It is clear to me that listening for the voice of the Creator in all things plays a key role that is widely-held within Indigenous cultures.

Chief Clarence Louie of the Osoyoos Indian Band, in his book Rez Rules (pp. 281-282), tells how protracted negotiations about an ancestral burial site at swiws point were resolved.  As time dragged on, government negotiators pressed him for a decision. “I knew these people genuinely wanted to help me” he writes, “but I also knew that this decision was above corporate Canada’s and government’s way of thinking.  I shook my head and told them in one sentence what I was going to do. ‘I’m going to go down to the site soon… and listen to the wind.’

“Someone in the room asked, ‘How long before you come to a decision?’ ‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘As long as it takes.’  A few days later I drove to the site, walked silently around the ancestor’s grave a few times and sprinkled some tobacco there.  I walked down by the water and listened to that great sound of water lightly pushing up against the rocks on shore…. As a Native leader, sometimes the best thing you can do is go out on the land and listen to the wind. Listen to all the sounds of nature.”   That aligns almost completely with patterns I heard from Stoney Nakoda elders, for whom no decisions were rushed, in order to make room for everyone to have a say and for the Spirit to have room to be heard as well. To me, this sounds like another instance of seeking the still small voice of calm, the voice of Creator God.  

Now, in a traditional sermon, I would now be summarizing these instances of interactions with the still small voice into a strong but wordy summary. What’s going to happen, instead, is we’re going to spend some quiet time in the presence of God’s still small voice, making room for the God of the ages to speak without words.

I invite you, then, to get comfortable in your pew… feet flat on the floor if possible, shoulders relaxed, eyes closed or averted… now, take three deep cleansing breaths… and in the quiet,  notice your breath and the beat of your heart.  That heartbeat you notice, is the life of Creator God beating in you, nothing short of the heartbeat of creation.  Feel the emergence of life in that holy gift, and as you continue to breathe in and out, bask in your connection all of creation, and the God who gives us life... the still small voice… of love, of life, of light….

We gradually return our focus to this room,  and with that I invite you to open your eyes as you are ready… and as we remain seated, we will sing together hymn #37 in More Voices, “Each blade of grass.”

References cited:

Louie, Chief Clarence.  Rez Rules.  Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2021.

United Church of Canada. https://united-church.ca/blogs/round-table/why-indigenous-day-prayer#:~:text=In%201971%2C%20the%20observance%20of,a%20National%20Aboriginal%20Solidary%20Day.

Whittier, John Greenleaf. “Dear God, who loves all humankind.”  [hymn VU 608] written 1872.

© 2025 Rev Greg Wooley, Osoyoos-Oliver United Church Pastoral Charge

Acts 2: 1-21 - Sunday, June 15, 2025

 The very first sermon I ever preached, 44 years ago, was on today’s scripture, the 2^nd chapter of Acts.   And, just like this year when our United Church Centennial displaced this classic Pentecost scripture lesson by a week, that first time I preached on it was also one week after Pentecost Sunday.  I was doing a summer placement at Eastend and Shaunavon, SK, and my supervising minister was in a bit of a hurry to get out of town when he passed the Sunday scriptures along to me, so I was given the scriptures for the wrong week.

But there’s never really a “wrong” time to engage the 2^nd chapter of Acts, as it describes the first Christian Pentecost.  The visual and auditory images of this story are so rich: the rush of wind, tongues as of flames resting on each believer; language barriers transcended in an ecstatic display of holy power; and an empowerment of those who followed the risen Christ, by the gift of the Holy Spirit.

People had gathered in Jerusalem for the Jewish festival of Shavuot, also known to Greek-speaking Jews as “Pente-cost”, the feast fifty days after Passover. It was one of three harvest festivals in Judea, for just like here in the Okanagan where the cherries and the stone fruits and the ground crops and the apples don’t all mature at the same time, the various crops of the middle east come to fruition at different times, and each got celebrated.

Visitors came to Jerusalem from Jewish communities around the Mediterranean, and within that was a much smaller sub-group, perhaps 120 or so, of Jesus-following Jews who had come from Galilee.  In the 26^th chapter of Matthew, we’re informed that Galileans spoke with an  unmistakable accent or dialect: in Canadian terms, say, a Newfoundland accent, or perhaps it was more their use of words, like those of us from Saskatchewan correctly referring to a hooded sweatshirt as a bunny-hug while the rest of the land incorrectly calls it a hoodie.  One way or another, it would be hard for this group of Galileans to escape notice in Jerusalem, and since it was less than two months since Jesus was crucified, they would have been worried that their accent would betray them.  It is a sobering thought to think that at this moment, Hispanic residents of the US have similar fears, worried that their Spanish surname or accent or the hue of their skin could be enough for them to be deported.  

That worried group of Galilean Jewish Christ-followers, gathered off by themselves, perhaps, it is suggested, in the Upper Room where they had shared the last supper with Jesus, were revealed by a big, assertive action of the Holy Spirit, changing them and their movement forever. In a showy display of wind and flame and language, God used the Holy Spirit to signify that this new way of being, this path of the living Christ, would cross ethnic and regional boundaries and rivalries.  Peter, who lost his words in the last week of Jesus’ life, found them now – Galilean accent and all – and the agenda of the Holy Spirit with the fledgling Church took a big step forward.

If we fast-forward a couple of chapters, to the 4^th chapter of Acts, we read that the newly energized followers of Jesus got busy right after that Pentecost day in Jerusalem, speaking Christ’s words of forgiveness and inclusion, bringing his healing touch to those in distress, and irritating the same religious leaders who had put Jesus to death.  Much was happening, but as things happen when you’re learning something new, it was still a bit haphazard, they were missing things and getting ahead of themselves all at the same time.  So that first group of Christians prayed for the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and Acts 4:31 states “When they were finished praying, the place where they were meeting was shaken.  They were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to proclaim God’s message with boldness.”

That boldness is one of the qualities of the Holy Spirit: the courage to confront with clarity, a quality we saw on full display yesterday, as protestors south of the border raised their objection to the actions of their president, including a truly ghastly parade. The Spirit shaped their words to be clear, courageous, and timely: in that first Christian generation, and now.  Christ’s followers had both the power and the responsibility to affirm God’s gift of life, to confront ideologies and individuals who try to squelch the lives of others, to be the voice for the voiceless, to BE the presence of Christ in a world of need.

That, my friends, is an awesome and humbling responsibility.  At Pentecost we are reminded that the Holy Spirit has entered not only my life as a follower of Jesus, but has placed heavy expectations on our gathered life as the Church.  In the words of our new United Church call statement, the Holy Spirit empowers us to lives of Deep Spirituality, Bold Discipleship, and Daring Justice.  The Spirit calls us to be alert, to be faithful and knowledgeable and truthful, our hearts and minds fully engaged in this work even when chaos and disinformation have the upper hand.  As we recall that first Christian Pentecost, we are reminded of the Church’s calling to be the ongoing body of Christ in the world, summoning our deepest hopes and inspiring us to reach beyond comfort and propriety in Jesus’ name.

As we consider this calling, in light the 2^nd chapter of Acts, we also have cause to pause, and reflect on the damage that can be done and has been done when the Church has abused its power. In much of its life, even now in some parts of the world, the Church has enjoyed the advantages of coercive power more than its responsibilities of service, decimating the lives of Indigenous peoples, targeting people of colour, inciting homophobia, diminishing opportunities for women, and encouraging the shunning of those who believe differently from the norm.  As those entrusted with Christ’s mission in the world, we Christians have a lot to answer for, and we pray for God’s own forgiveness as we seek a new way forward.

At the risk of belabouring this point, the shortfall between our calling to Christ’s own inclusiveness and our all-too-human actions is as old as the Church itself.  In today’s reading, Acts 2:5 claims that “every nation under heaven”, or at least every nation with a Jewish connection, was present at this day of Shavuot/Pentecost.  Over the years I have just taken this as fact, as there are a lot of the place names in the 2^nd chapter of Acts.  It seems like a pretty complete list, and who am I to spot if anyone is missing?

Well, this map (https://visualunit.me/2020/05/25/the-nations-of-pentecost/ ) places these geographic locations on a map, the places that, taken together, supposedly constituted the “known world” at that time and place.  But it wasn’t.  In those days, within the Roman empire there were understood to be three categories of people: there were Greeks/Romans, there were educated Jews, and then there were “others”.  Intellectually at least, there was a degree of respect between the Jewish leaders and the Greek thinkers, but that respect was not extended to that broad category of “others”, referred to by the Greek word BARBAROI… or our English word, BARBARIANS.  The name Barbaroi was intended as an insult toward those who spoke languages other than Greek and Latin; to those of higher education and greater political power, the language of these outsiders sounded like blah-blah-blah, or like a child playing with their lips, and they were summarily dismissed.

The author of the book of Acts would have known full well there were others beyond the regions named in the story of the first Christian Pentecost, people well beyond the place names listed. But those people were, well, barbarians, whose existence didn’t even warrant a mention. If these “barbarians” lived in Jerusalem or were amongst the visitors for Shavuot, who cared?  They were just too far outside, too different, and, well, “not good enough.”  Sadly, things have changed little in 2025.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the way that the Holy Spirit entered the room on that first Christian Pentecost and overcame the cultural and linguistic differences between Jesus’ Galilean disciples, and visitors to Jerusalem.  To this day, Pentecost is a wonderful opportunity in the Church year to underline our global connections as people of faith, and God’s desire that even the most challenging differences be overcome.  But this possible exclusion of those regarded as not quite good enough, at that first Christian Pentecost, reminds us how easily it is for us to replace Christ’s call for inclusion with the easy, familiar ways of exclusion. Whether it’s folks from the other side of the track, blue collar vs white collar, left vs right, heteronormative vs queer, Protestant vs Catholic, Israeli vs Iranian and Palestinian, boomers vs gen Z, we live with labels and isolation and judgment and violence… and so, it would appear, did the earliest believers.

But let that be a point of inspiration to be alive, aware, awake, yes, even “woke.” Today is a day to be renewed by the gift of the Holy Spirit, a gift which opens our entire selves to the needs of the world around us  As we are lured into a vortex of hopelessness by the newsfeeds of our very troubled world even as it activates our compassion when life is lost, the Spirit tells us that true, empowered engagement is hard, but necessary. As the living body of Christ in the world, we are called to be open and vulnerable to the world, to learn what’s going on, and to address it through hands and feet and voices carrying out transformative acts of love.  We have been called and equipped for solidarity with the marginalized people Jesus spent his time with, to tell the powerful to back off their harmful agendas just as Jesus did, to risk our reputations in favour of the radical demands of Christ’s own love.  On this day of Pentecost, amidst the holy swirl of words and colours and impressive displays of power, we are called back to the power of love, which revitalizes our commitment to put love into action every time we can.  In the beauty and boldness of God, Creator, Christ and Holy Spirit: we pray, come, Lord Jesus, come Holy Spirit, maranatha! and Amen.

References:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c70622038yxo

Bible Hub. https://biblehub.com/topical/g/galilean_accent.htm

Davis, D. Mark. https://leftbehindandlovingit.blogspot.com/2013/05/pentecost-in-contexts.html

https://europe.factsanddetails.com/article/entry-1087.html

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12012-pentecost

Patterson, Stephen J.  The Forgotten Creed: Christianity's Original Struggle Against Bigotry, Slavery, and Sexism. London: Oxford U Press, 2018. 

Tertin, Ben. https://bibleproject.com/articles/what-is-pentecost-and-why-is-it-important/ 

Walker, Peter. In the Steps of Jesus. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006.

 

© 2025 Rev Greg Wooley, Osoyoos-Oliver United Church Pastoral Charge

 

 

United Church of Canada - 100th Anniversary Sunday - June 8, 2025

Today’s reflection, shared by Rev’s Shannon Mang and Greg Wooley, alternated between verses of VU 644, “I was there to hear your borning cry”, a baptismal hymn by John C. Ylvisaker which traces the ages of a person’s life, and reflections on the life of The United Church of Canada when it was at that age & stage of its life.

Sing verses 1 & 2, then reflection:

“I was there to hear your borning cry,  I’ll be there when you are old.
I rejoiced the day you were baptized,  to see your life unfold.

I was there when you were but a child, with a faith to suit you well,
In a blaze of light you wandered off to find where demons dwell.

1925 to 1939: formation of The United Church of Canada, to the start of World War II

I suppose that my (Shannon’s) section of this story starts with the gestation period that brought the United Church of Canada to birth. Church union in Canada began with a conversation that started 40 years before the union of the Methodist, Presbyterians and Congregationalist took place in 1925. In 1902 the formal union discussion began between the three founding denominations.

I grew up in First United Church, Melville Saskatchewan. My church in Melville, was the very first Local Union Church, incorporated in 1908. That was 17 years before the birth of the United Church of Canada.  Local union congregations grew out of young, strong rural communities who set aside denominational differences to have a Protestant presence in their town. While the Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and Methodists deliberated for 23 years, (with a significant pause in the union talks during the First World War from 1914-1918) the local union congregations went ahead and formed worshipping communities, with a “get ‘er done” attitude. At the time of Union in 1925 there were 9000 congregations that came into the union and 3000 of them were local Union congregations primarily from the Prairie provinces and northern Ontario.

There was a great deal of celebration with the birth of the United Church of Canada on June 10, 1925, but… 38 percent of the Presbyterians voted against the Union and they formed the “Continuing” Presbyterian Church in Canada. The brand-new United Church of Canada was embroiled in legal battles until 1937 dealing with church properties and whether they would become United Churches or stay with the continuing Presbyterian Church of Canada.

Another challenge for the brand-new church was its first big internal fight that started in 1925 when Lydia Gruchie asked to be ordained. That request was refused.  Her presbytery in Saskatchewan, and the Saskatchewan provincial Council asked the General Council every two years to ordain her, and they were refused 5 times, and each time there were lengthy theological debates about why women should, or should not be ordained. At the 6^th General Council in 1936, the Saskatchewan council prevailed and Lydia was ordained.  The fight for women’s ordination was won, but only with very tight reins around it: women who were ordained ministers and deaconesses could not be married- if they got married they had to give up their ordination or commissioning. This policy held until 1966 when those tight reins were taken off and married women were able to reclaim their orders and return to work in the United Church of Canada.

then verses 3 and 4, and reflection:

When you heard the wonder of the word,  I was there to cheer you on;
You were raised to praise the living Lord, to whom you now belong.

If you find someone to share your time and you join your hearts as one,
I’ll be there to make you verses rhyme from dusk till rising sun.

1940-1965: WWII and Baby Boom, Peak of attendance in 1964-65.

The Great War of 1914-1918 was hailed as the war to end all wars, yet by 1939 Canada was drawn back into war.  The United Church of Canada was only 14 years old at the time.  As the largest Protestant denomination in the land, with a strong commitment to civic duty, we saw tens of thousands of our members volunteer for military service.  This impacted our Church for a long time, as in many towns even up to the 1990s, the leaders of the local United Church congregation and the local Royal Canadian Legion were often the same people.

With the end of World War II in 1945 the United Church of Canada, age 20, entered the baby boom. Every congregation needed to find extra space to house Sunday schools that were full to overflowing; by the mid-1950s, established congregations were building Christian Education wings, and in newly formed suburbs in Canada’s cities, new congregations sprung up, close enough you could walk to them.  People who lived through these years remember the energy of so many young families, such huge Sunday schools, and the optimism that filled much of Canada also filled the Church.

From its earliest days, we were a denomination that met you where you were.  In rural areas this meant that rather than having a hub Church in the nearest city or large town, expecting that people would travel an hour or more on Sunday, there would be Church services in every village, in rural schoolhouses and, in each suburb.  The United Church of Canada also intended to meet you where you were, theologically: while we had the 1940 Statement of Faith, faith development was based less on the memorization of doctrine, and more on having a faith that made sense, informed by your life experiences and the life experiences of the world.  In the aftermath of World War II, the notion a God who was in control of everything no longer withstood scrutiny as we learned the Nazi agenda of exterminating Jews, people of diminished capacity, and the LGBTQ population. With our desire to serve every community, and engage the hard questions, our theology needed to be broad.

Continuing the pattern of two stars and a wish, I celebrate the spirit of civic engagement in these years of The United Church, and our willingness to meet people where they were.  The lament is the shadow side of these two positives.   At times, we went along with government policies too easily, or allowed our voices to be muted; for example, while some voices here in BC opposed the  internment of Japanese Canadians in World War II, the United Church as a whole was less eager to say anything that might look “unpatriotic”; and,  in attempting to be all things to all people, we’ve been accused of having a theology that is a mile wide and an inch deep. At times, I admit that this critique hits home, as our desire, especially in those baby boom years, to include every opinion in our big tent has been both exhausting and unhelpful.

then verse 5, and reflection:

In the middle ages of your life, not too old, no longer young,
I’ll be there to guide you through the night, complete what I’ve begun.

1965 to 1990: The New Curriculum… A socially progressive Church

This next time frame is the first one I (Greg) can speak of from first-hand experience.  When I was four years old, in 1964 our suburban Regina congregation started using the United Church of Canada’s recently developed New Curriculum.  This curriculum arose, because so many fresh graduates from seminary complained that when they brought their new learnings from seminary to their settlement charges, people were either baffled or outraged.  The thought, then, was to align our Christian Education, from early readers to adolescents to adults, with the learnings of liberal Christianity which had shaped our seminaries since the 1940s.

In some communities this new Curriculum was vilified but that’s not my memory of it.  It helped me, as a child, make the connection between the way I lived my life and the ethical teachings of Jesus.  My relationship with God was not just geared toward entry into heaven; it was about how I treated my neighbour, and if I stood with them when things needed to change. And alongside the New Curriculum, the release of our New Creed in 1968 brought our theology in line with the “brotherhood of man” ideals of the civil rights and social justice movements.

The mid-60s to early-90s were also the years when the predecessor of Broadview magazine, The United Church Observer, along with Church-mandated studies, helped open our eyes to the destructive power of capitalism and colonialism. Our General Council spoke an apology to the first nations of this land, stating  “In our zeal to tell you of the good news of Jesus Christ we were closed to the value of your spirituality….We tried to make you be like us and in so doing we helped to destroy the vision that made you what you were. As a result, you, and we, are poorer and the image of the Creator in us is twisted, blurred, and we are not what we are meant by God to be”.  I am proud of those words, spoken by a Church that was willing to admit its failings.

From these years, I celebrate our willingness to engage social issues bravely, openly and honestly.  What I lament, is that these important moves have not been more eagerly received by the progressively-minded sector of our society.  I say this, fully aware of how hard it was here in Osoyoos and Oliver around 1990, when roughly one third of each congregation, angered by the United Church’s open discussion about gay ordination and the general liberalization of the denomination, left to form their own congregation.

Especially in places where 1988 was tumultuous, I lament our lack of connection with folks whom I think would love the social teachings of Jesus, and continue to I long for greater connection with unchurched folks, and members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, and others who are suspicious of religion but would bring so much to us if they were to join the fold of the United Church.

verse 6, then final reflection:

When the evening gently closes in and you shut your weary eyes,
I’ll be there as I have always been with just one more surprise.

1990 forward: “Engaged Retirement” with promises of resurrection!

In 1990, the United Church turned 65, and I (Greg) was preaching in rural Saskatchewan, wondering aloud if it was time for the United Church to call it a day and retire.  While I’ve not been able to unearth that sermon, I recall saying something like, “many of you are retired, and I keep hearing from you that you have never been busier.”  Now that I have reached the age of 65, I think I’d say the same thing: may the gifts of active retirement be ours in abundance!

In this section, I’m going to start with the lament. The lament is a lifelong one. As one who can now officially call myself a Senior Citizen, even before I entered ministry at age 21, there haven’t been very many people younger than me attending Church, with the exception of one congregation I served in a suburban neighbourhood full of young families.  With this being the case, we are now stuck with the task of trying to pique the curiosity of neighbours who have not only have no personal Christian Memory, but whose parents and grandparents weren’t Church folks either, folks whose impressions of Church are coloured by the regrettable actions of the loudest and least inclusive.

I lament that, yes. But there have been, and continue to be blessings. I must mention how influential the Okanagan has been in this season of life of The United Church of Canada.  Starting with the Whole People of God curriculum, which brought local, in-house, Canadian resources to our Sunday Schools, the now-closed Wood Lake books brought terrific scholarship to us.  So also, the influence of Naramata Centre was huge, in our families and many others.  In the mid-1990s the day summer registrations opened at Naramata was like phoning a box office to get tickets to a big rock concert: you got on the phone and you kept dialling until you got through.  The connection forged at Naramata between earth and spirit, families and seekers and singers, was a gift that keeps on giving across western Canada.  

In these years, the work of Church growth experts like Tom Bandy and Bill Easum and the Alban Institute, and the scholarship of open-minded Christian thinkers like Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan helped us find new life. The extremely well-run Emerging Spirit campaign of 2004-2005 gave strategies to reach folks from age 30 to 45, and an online community called Wonder Café gave a virtual meeting place for those who had not found Christian community in their town.  These moves, while not providing the hoped-for numeric growth,  served us well in March of 2020, when the pandemic hit and everybody needed to become instant experts in Zoom and YouTube and other means of digital connection.  While those COVID years took a lot out of all Churches, charities and volunteer organizations, we survived, with resilience, resourceful and adaptability that continue to serve us well. 

+ + +

Come to think of it, those God-given gifts of resilience, resourcefulness and adaptability, have always been part of the DNA of this national, Canadian-born Church of ours.  The early vision of a Church where all could gather, coast to coast to coast required a lot of adaptability, and ever since then we have been checking our context, going deep into our personal and spiritual resources, and engaging in self-examination and repentance.  All of this has fed our yearning to be the body of Christ in this wide and varied land.  We cannot know with certainty what the future brings, but we can give thanks for the one God, experienced as Creator, Christ and Spirit, whose presence is tangible on this day, and who continues to be our horizon line as we in our generation walk the path of Jesus.

And we conclude with singing verse 7 to close this section of the service.

I was there to hear your borning cry, I’ll be there when you are old.
I rejoiced the day you were baptized, to see your life unfold.”

 

Hymn words and tune © 1985, John C. Ylvisaker. Reproduced by permission via  Osoyoos-Oliver United Church’s OneLicense subscription, A-740532  

Message © 2025, Rev’s Shannon Mang and Greg Wooley, Osoyoos-Oliver United Church Pastoral Charge.

Revelation 21-22 - Sunday, May 25, 2025

a sermon by Rev. Shannon Mang, Osoyoos-Oliver United Church Pastoral Charge

The work we are always called to do as Christians, is to translate between living in the world as it is, and living by a new way, in a new realm.    The language of the New Testament, cleverly engages this sense of addressing the way things are, and our yearning for the new ways that God calls us to, by using many familiar words in new ways.

The Greek word that we translate the Kingdom of God--- or Kin-dom of God is basileia. It shows up all through the New Testament.  But this same word,  basileia was also the word that the Roman Empire used to describe itself.  So every time the very first Christians heard the word basileia they would experience it in two different worlds. Inside the community of Jesus followers, basileia would cue them to think about the Kingdom, or Kin-dom of God, the place shown them by Jesus where everyone was equal, and they were all sisters and brothers – kin, or siblings, in Christ.  Outside of their protective community, basileia was a totally different and fearsome thing: the whole Roman Empire, a place of fear where people were enslaved and used and thrown aside.

But basileia isn’t the only word that had more than one meaning for the early Christians.  Son of God was a term in their little house church gatherings that referred to Jesus, but outside those gatherings, in every city in the Empire, Son of God was Caesar’s title. Gospel was a term that referred to the good news of Jesus Christ inside the house church, while outside their gatherings, gospel was the title that Rome gave to its press releases that were announced and plastered on walls and gates and pillars in town and city centers. These words – basileia, Son of God, Gospel – experienced in our day as churchy words, were in the days of Jesus political words, and their use by the early followers of Jesus and the writers of the New Testament was intentional, setting Jesus and the rule of God over the rule of Caesar and his Empire.

In the book of Revelation this becomes even more clear. Empire is symbolized by the evil city of Babylon, while the rule of God is symbolized by the New Jerusalem.  The first readers of this book were challenged to choose which city they were going to be citizens of: would they embrace the established ways of Empire, or choose and indeed build the new home of God’s powerful love.  This question remains for every person who has read this book for the past two thousand years.

The Book of Revelation is like a graphic novel revealing the terrifying realities of the seven Churches named at the beginning of the book. Those people were trying their best to get by—to survive under Roman rule—and trying to remain faithful followers of Jesus in the messes of their lives. The writer and preacher and pastor, John of Patmos, encouraged them to not bend to Empire, even though this was a public, visible expectation.  At Roman holidays throughout the year, everyone was expected to bow down and worshipping Caesar, the Empire’s Son of God, and this forced a choice: would the early Christians just do it and not bring any attention to themselves, or would they refuse and stand out from the crowd. History tells us that when Christians refused to worship Caesar, they were first isolated, then that turned into enslavement, and finally, it turned into crucifixion, so the cost of following Jesus, the Son of God became very high.

True believers could see their world being destroyed and sucked into the vortex of the evils spread by Empire.  John’s Revelation showed how Empire, through the metaphor of Babylon, corrupted all human cities and exploited and ruined and polluted all of creation in its greed and its lust for power. But it wasn’t all gloom and doom; the book of Revelation let the people know that God knew of their suffering and loved them beyond measure. In these hard times, they were encouraged to stay in relationship with God and with one another.  Such choices might not keep them from being hurt or killed by the evil Empire, but staying in relationship with God through Christ would ultimately save them.  God would win this battle.

And Revelation doesn’t leave it at that. Once God wins, then God re-creates. God took the evil symbol of the city and redeemed it, creating a holy city, a new Jerusalem. God took the mess of the lives of the earliest Christians trying to resist Empire, and redeemed them as citizens of a New Heaven and New Earth.

It is a good thing that God loves our messes, even the ones that seem beyond redemption—for God enters our messes when invited and goes about doing what God does best: re-creating newness, right here, right now. The Book of Revelation shows how God always shows up: followers of the Risen Christ will always find the Kin-dom of God emerging, sometimes where we least expect it. We are urged to look for the New Creation already being built, and learn what it is to dwell in God’s New Heaven and New Earth.  

In the turmoil of the world, in the work we are doing to discern God’s calling for our Church, in those places in our lives that need reconstruction, God is actively engaged and we are called to step into the ways of the new basileia, the new Kin-dom of God.  May it be so.  Amen. 

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

Revelation 21: 1-6 - Sunday, May 18, 2025

 “I see a new heaven. I see a new earth as the old one will pass away, where the fountain of life flows and without price goes to all people who abide in the land.”

These evocative words by hymn-writer Carolyn McDade engage the imagery of the final two chapters of the Book of Revelation. While the imagery harkens to ancient conceptualizations of the earth, the waters, and a firmament, its poetic beauty transcends the mechanics of how it all fits together and has continued to bring hope to centuries of believers.

Few books in the Bible are as polarizing as the Book of Revelation.  For some, it has gained an outsized importance, somehow becoming the most important book of all, a literal roadmap of the end times and how we will be judged, with each symbol and event in Revelation analyzed and aligned with current events to calculate the end of time.  For others, Revelation is easily side-stepped and ignored because of its weirdness: too many images, too many numbers, too much like a horror movie or a fever dream. 

In between these two polar positions, is a place of curiosity.  Written by a Christian mystic named John of Patmos to seven Churches in what we now call Türkiye, the book of Revelation includes letters offering encouragement to individual Churches facing harsh challenges, but this guidance is shrouded in the secrecy of metaphor, for safety’s sake – what we might refer to in our day as “encryption” to keep the information out of the wrong hands.  John of Patmos needs for these Churches, under heavy persecution, to know that somebody out there knows what’s going on, that the everlasting God is aware of and moved by their plight, and that the power of Christ’s resurrection will eventually win the day.

After twenty chapters of rambling symbolism and heightened anxiety, we arrive at today’s reading: a vision of a new heaven and new earth.  Things were so desperately difficult for the early Christian Churches, that just tinkering with things as they were would not do.  Only a total re-set of how we relate to one another and to God would suffice: a new heaven, a new earth. And once John of Patmos named the evils of the day, in the language of beasts and dragons and the destruction of Babylon, what is said in chapter 21 contains a series of relevant, hopeful, grounded surprises.   

Starting at the end of today’s scripture and working backwards: pleasant surprise number one is what an earthy vision this is.

Verse six states, “To anyone who is thirsty I will give the right to drink from the spring of the water of life without paying for it.”  Or, in the words of Carolyn McDade, the new realm is a place “where the fountain of life flows and without price goes to all people who abide in the land.”  This new world not disconnected and dreamy; it is a place of quenched thirst, unbridled fairness, and dignity for all. A world where Shalom is the rule.  It’s a place where there is health, wholeness, opportunity and life in abundance for all, not just for the sly, the well-connected, the bombastic or the wealthy. 

The language about water is so evocative, because water is the foundation and essence of life.  Imagine with me a world where clean, drinkable water would be treated as a right for all people rather than a saleable commodity.  Imagine a world freed from drought and starvation, a world where no child dies of malnutrition or cholera or dysentery.  At present, 36 first nations communities in this land are under long-term boil water advisories; imagine what it would be like if that were fixed. These words from the book of Revelation inspire us not only to dream of a future world where all have what they need – food, water, shelter, safety, love – but to embrace those goals here and now. For what we have here is a statement of Divine intention: it is God’s ultimate intention that there be no impediments for all people to enjoy the gift of life. 

Pleasant surprise number two, is the Eternal God’s desire for new beginnings.

The unsettling part of the language of “a new heaven and a new earth” is that it seems to be saying that this earth isn’t good enough anymore, not worth fixing so we need a new one. These words may even be taken as permission to those who are destroying the earth to keep on doing so, to extract every ounce of life out of this planet without worrying about future generations because, well, God’s going to replace it with something new. 

But that is nonsense. Rather than hearing these words as an invitation to earth’s replacement, humanity is invited to hear these words as part of God’s gracious delight at new beginnings, second chances and reconciliation.  Throughout the Bible we see the everlasting God’s desire for new beginnings and second chances, as we encounter characters who had no right to be forgiven, people who by our standards would be beyond redemption:  Moses killed a man in anger, David had Bathsheba’s soldier husband sent to certain death at the front lines, Peter lied about his connection to Jesus no fewer than three times – yet Moses led his people from slavery to freedom, Jesus arose from the house of David, Peter was named as the rock, the foundation of the burgeoning Church.  If a by-the-book, judgmental approach had been applied to these three individuals, none of them would have had the opportunity to lead, but that’s not how God works.

Whenever the old and destructive needs to end and the new and constructive needs to begin, God is the change-agent in the midst of it.  We are called to trust the God of grace, and at the same time we are invited to put our hand to the plough. Our willingness to be the change that God intends will be a key for The United Church of Canada as we turn 100.  Can we commit to new ways of being, relative to communities of people who have typically been badly treated by the Church?  Will our commitments as a denomination and as congregations, to reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, with the queer community, and with other populations whose oppression we have been complicit in, be heartfelt or performative?  Will we continue to be vocal and visible advocates for God’s children facing oppression in other lands? As a progressive Christian presence in this nation, will we be willing to receive with joy the gifts of new Canadians to our communities and our Churches, being energized by the Canada of 2025 and 2035 and 2055 rather than lamenting the way things once were? 

While a new heaven and a new earth is portrayed by the book of Revelation as a future culmination of history, the reality is that God brings renewal over and over and over again in our lives and the life of the world, even now.  Partnering with God is not something that has to wait; it is a way of being we can enter into, any time.

Which brings us to our third point, and that is the direction of God’s activity in all of this.  This is a story of God engaging with the world, not humanity exiting this world to be with God.

Nazarene pastor Danny Quarstrom has these eloquent words for us:

“As we’re coming to the culmination of the book of Revelation we see that it’s not about us being pulled away from this earth, it’s about God drawing close to this earth! … In verse 3 we hear [that] God ‘will dwell’ or ‘tabernacle’ with them… this is the same description as John 1:14, ‘the Word became flesh and lived among us…’ 

“The Revelation of Jesus given to John of Patmos isn’t about the faithful avoiding difficulty or being raptured out of tribulation but is about God making God’s… dwelling place, in the heart of this earth. God will wipe away every tear. This is the new thing God is doing.”

The newness comes to us at God’s heartfelt initiative; God does not wait, dispassionately, at a distance.   God is in us, we are in God, and God is love; and in that assertion we realize that in our loving – whether the tender love of compassion, or the brave love of advocacy – God is known.  Not just in heaven, not just in future, but here, and now, with these people and in the midst of this world.  Or to put it another way that you may have heard, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

In today’s reading, we experience a God who is as close to us as our next breath, as present to us as our highest hopes.  The God you experience when enjoying the beauty of the orchards and vineyards and the God you engage in prayer when you are worried about the world around you, is the same God.  The God whose vision of equality you yearn for is the same loving presence that has been your companion since birth, your source and destination, your Alpha and Omega.  The God whose creative energy infuses the space between us, is the same God whose reconciling grace can energize our efforts to heal the environmental mess that thoughtless human greed has created.  There is most definitely work to do in our lives and in the life of the world, AND there is a Divine partner who loves us desperately, who meets us on the path and joins in our best efforts.

 “I see a new heaven. I see a new earth as the old one will pass away, Where the fountain of life flows and without price goes to all people who abide in the land.”  In our hopes, in our plans, in our lives, may this be so. Amen.

References cited:

Copeland, Adam J. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-adam-j-copeland/revelation-21-1-6-earth-day-god-and-the-apocalypse_b_3148811.html

Government of Canada, “Ending long-term drinking water advisories”. https://www.sac-isc.gc.ca/eng/1506514143353/1533317130660

McDade, Carolyn.  “I See a new heaven”, #713 in Voices United, 1979.

Quanstrom, Danny. http://www.aplainaccount.org/#!Revelation-2116/bhul0/5714d7650cf2331db0f8217a

 

© Rev Greg Wooley, Osoyoos-Oliver United Church Pastoral Charge, 2025.