Exodus 14: 19-31 - 15 September 2024

 

The Interim Ministry Backpack - a presentation by Rev Shannon Mang

The story of the Exodus gives us a context to see our own story as we being our Intentional Interim journey together.

- Exodus is a story of how the God of the ancient ancestors Abraham and Sarah entered human history to set free the Hebrew people who had been enslaved for several generations in Egypt. God leading the Hebrews out of enslavement and into freedom is one of the core stories of our Christian tradition. The people wanted freedom in the promised land—but once they were out of immediate danger on the other side of the miraculous crossing of the sea, the grumbling started. It took 40 years of grumbling people in the wilderness- God responding in anger to the grumbling and Moses walking between the people and God for the people to become God’s people, and to leave their identity of enslavement behind them. The story tells us just how hard it is for a group of people to change, and that change will not happen standing still. Real change takes place when a group of people go on a journey together.

-the Hebrew people knew that God was up to something big as both they and the Egyptians lived through the plagues—but they still had to move fast once they were on their way. They left so quickly that they had to carry their unleavened bread with them. They took as much of the stuff of their lives with them as they could, but it wasn’t long for them to be stripped bare in the wilderness.

-We are going on an Intentional Interim Ministry journey together and today I want to talk about the tools that we have with us for our short journey of change:

The Three Questions of the IIM time:

-        These three questions will inform all of our work together. We will be starting with the Who Are We? Question, but as our path emerges, we will be going back and forth between the questions.

 

The Intentional Interim Process invites us to engage Five Focus Points in a congregation’s life. The way that each congregation or pastoral charge engages and studies these Five Focus Points will be different, but what I have experienced is that if a community of faith embraces the work of all five focus points, they will be a healthier community and have more clarity about their future directions by journey’s end. You see that the Transition Team is in the middle of the image and connected to all the focus points—I’ll be coming back to this and talking about the TT shortly. First, I want to unpack the congregation’s work on the focus points using a hiking backpack as our metaphor.  

Interim Minister Backpack-full – Greg and I became hikers while we lived in Canmore.

Interim Minister Backpack – unpacked-  Any time we go on a hike these are the tools in our backpack– they support our journey. They help keep us safe, comfortable and prepared to manage our adventures:

Water

Bear Spray

Sit Upon

Extra layers

sunscreen

First Aid Kit

Binoculars

Bug spray  

Phone

In the IIM backpack we will be bringing along some of these same tools and similar tools to keep ourselves safe, comfortable and prepared to manage the adventures we will have together as we take this Intentional Interim journey together for the next 22 months.

Heritage

-        Magnifiying glass- we will be starting with the Heritage area, using a magnifying glass to understand our past, but we will likely return to the Heritage focus a few times as we uncover interesting patterns and connections between our past, present and future.

-        a mirror helps us see ourselves—a rear-view mirror would be even more appropriate to this Focus Point to help us talk about looking behind us.

-        Field guide/Bible – I’ll calling the Bible our Field Guide in our IIM Backpack. It shows up in three of these Focus Point slides, as our Field Guide is crucial to help us understand our IIM time together. With the Heritage focus point, the Bible informed those who came before us in these communities, and their faith has helped shape our current faith.  

Mission—including Identity and Purpose

-        Candle- candles are an ancient technology- they can help illuminate our surroundings if we are without electricity or batteries. We will have times when we feel we are stumbling about in the dark, and a candle will give us spiritual comfort as well as illumination as we discern our current identity and purpose.

-        the mirror helps us see ourselves with clarity. It is hard to understand our own identity as a congregation or pastoral charge without being able to see ourselves right now.

-        Compass (and multi-tool!!) – compasses are also an ancient and reliable technology to help us find our way, and hopefully, to avoid going in circles. I love that my compass is part of a multi-tool—which is great when we might encounter new situations where the choices of a Swiss army knife—or this sort of multi-tool can provide innovative solutions to a problem.

Leadership – the Leadership Focus point considers our human resources. Prior to Intentional Interim times, both clergy and lay leaders have usually been working full out and are tired. In our IIM backpack we have snacks for nourishment, and water for hydration for leaders who are tired, hungry and thirsty. In an Intentional Interim time, it is important that we take the time to eat together, and provide both care and nourishment along the way.

-        Maps are important—they don’t tell the whole story, but they do give direction and instruction about the terrain we are travelling.  Maps can also be provided by other congregations who are a few years ahead of us in their transition journey. It is exciting to learn from other’s journeys and United Church folk are always willing to share their stories… and their maps.

-        The cute pair of cat gloves are the reminder to have extra layers of clothes in our backpack – there will be changes in weather and it is important to be able to put on extra layers if it becomes cold and wet—and to have space in our backpack to take off layers if we get to hot. The extra layers in an IIM journey are people ready and able to come on board to help with the process—and they are also people who have carried too much for too long who need to step back and take a break from leadership for awhile.

-        The compass and multi-tool is important in this Focus area too, providing new people skill sets and tools for new innovative possibilities.

Connections- to the community and larger church

-        A  First Aid Kit is important to be able to manage small emergencies and get us home safely if we have had an injury. The Region and the National church are like a first aid kit—they provide lots of guidance that is available to churches anytime.

-        In the same way, the cell phone is a way for the larger church to be available to help us out through any emergency or difficult part of our IIM journey.

-        Our cell phone also about connecting us to our local communities —we have access to the wealth of resources in our communities. One of the three questions is “Who are our neighbours?”- so we connect with our neighbours to see where the natural partnerships exist that will help  our sustainability.

-        And our field guide/Bible will continue to inform us about how to be in relationship with the larger United Church and with our broader community.

Future -   this Focus Point invites us to dream past our present realities and discern our responses to the third question—What is God calling us to? 

-        A flashlight, like the candle will help us navigate our way forward when we are walking in the dark

-        binoculars can help us see what is on the horizon, they bring what seems far away into closer focus

-        I no longer carry a camera--- but I depend on the CAMERA that is a part of my (phone) to record the journey—it is important to record this journey from the present into the future- that record will continue to guide these communities of faith

-        And once again we rely on our Field Guide/Bible to help us understand the future that God is calling us towards

Fun That Nourishes-- What Else will we need for our journey together? – let’s have a frisbee to remind us to have fun- let’s take time to play hard along while we work hard. – on Sept 29 we will be worshipping together in Osoyoos at 10am, and then we’ll be having a picnic together. Let’s take this opportunity to have some fun together.

-        And here is a song book to remind us to keep up our spirits by singing along the way

-        Do you have other symbols to help us remember to step lively and have fun??

Walking to the New Land

-        The walking stick is a reminder that we will walk together for only 22 short months—they will be busy and will fly past. The walking stick will help us keep our balance and navigate rough terrain as we will find our way together for the next two years

-        We will be keeping one of the walking sticks in each sanctuary… and they will be a reminder that it is the journey itself that is our work

Five Focus Points slide

-        Now that we have gone through the Five Focus points and the tools in our Backpack- I’d like to talk about the role of the transition team --- in the Exodus story, God directed Moses to share leadership-- Moses and Aaron and Miriam… and quite soon, the story tells us about a very burnt out Moses. God instructed Moses to extend the leadership team to 70 Elders. This work that we are beginning requires that we all be elders - we all do the research and the exploration. The smaller Transition Team is the group that will lead us through the IIM journey.

-        I bring experience, and training and the backing of a network of IIMinisters who help one another out--- but I am not the expert at coming up with the answers to the Three Questions.

-        The Transition Team will be the experts on the two congregations, and one or two Regional representatives on the TT are the experts on the local realities of the South Okanagan. Together, this team guides you--- the network of elders through the Intentional Interim process.  

-        Greg has been handing out nomination forms and pens – the members of the TT are not appointed by your Boards, rather they are lifted up by you. This is not election—it is discernment. Please use these sheets to suggest at least one name, or up to four names of people who you know has the gifts for this work. The list of qualities is on the sheet along with the experience we are looking for. Those named today, and next Sunday for anyone not here today will become our nomination list. We will ask those named to take time to pray and discern for themselves if they are feeling called to this work—in awhile we expect that two people from each congregation will say yes. Please take a few minutes today before you go for coffee, or leave to respond from your heart. Please leave your folded sheets in the basket.

-        Friends, Greg and I have been so warmly welcomed by you and we are glad to be like your Moses and Miriam and Aaron for this journey. God is with us and we are blessed to be taking this Exodus journey with you.

May it be so! Amen

 

Mark 7: 24-30 - 08 September 2024 - Osoyoos Oliver United Pastoral Charge

 I have always loved the stories of Jesus.  I know that for many folks in the Church and beyond the Church, the natural world, the majesty and intricacies of creation, is the main place where God is met, and for others God is primarily a companion met in life’s most difficult times, and while both of those are important to me, I mostly learn about the heart and intent of God by watching and listening to Jesus.  Christ’s desire for healing, his words that both comfort and challenge, his choice of disciples and dinner partners from the margins of society, all tell me what God-informed behaviours look like as we move toward the kin-dom of God.  Shannon and I were blessed by the opportunity to take a trip to the land of the Holy One in 2018, and actually experiencing the lands around the Sea of Galilee makes these stories of Jesus even more real.

It is with great anticipation, then, that I engage today’s story of Jesus and a Syrophoenician woman.  My anticipation is fueled by the story two chapters earlier in Mark’s gospel, in which a woman with a flow of blood is cured by touching the hem of Jesus’ garment, with Jesus proclaiming “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”  In the story adjacent to that one, the synagogue leader Jairus asked Jesus to heal his daughter, and Jesus did so. And I recall also the classic exchange in John’s gospel between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, where Jesus topples all manner of social and religious conventions, as a man talking to a woman, as a Jew interacting with a Samaritan, and as a spiritual guide opening up the potential of life made new, unfettered by old thinking.  

So when the woman in today’s reading, described as “a gentile, of Syrophoenician origin” begs Jesus to enact a healing by casting a demon out of her daughter, I just know what Jesus is going to do and say: he’s going to affirm the woman, he’s going to heal her daughter, he’s going to proclaim that the ethnic and religious background of this woman and her girl makes no difference in the kin-dom of God.  She asked for healing, after all, and restoring people to right relationships is what Jesus in all about.

But that’s not how Jesus answers.  He says, instead, with some of the harshest words to cross his lips, “"Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs."  What the heck, Jesus.  A woman with a sick child comes to you and because they’re not from your religious and ethnic background, you not only rebuff her request for healing, you insult them.  This doesn’t sound like the Jesus I know and love.

I’d like you to sit with that disconnect for a moment, for this is a gospel story not to be ignored.  What Jesus says to this woman is pointed and insulting.  She is immediately dismissed, as is her daughter’s illness, because they’re of another religion and ethnicity, and quite possibly, because they’re female.  These hurtful words, words that come too quickly, remind me that in Jesus we see both God and human nature at work simultaneously and oh boy, is this ever a human moment.  For as I am stunned by Jesus’ response, I recall many regrettable moments in my life when my first response has not been based on love and inclusion and a spirit of welcome, times when my first immature, xenophobic thoughts have been mean-spirited, or when I have reflexively blurted out something truly unworthy: racist, sexist, elitist.  I think of those words from this morning’s reading from James, of the importance of not mistreating common folks in order to make things easier for the elites, yet that’s the first thing Jesus blurts out: others are more worthy than you, lady, you don’t even get to line up for crumbs from the table.

So there’s that: in Jesus’ first answer, his humanness comes out.  Unflattering, yes, and so very human.  And fortunately, his first word is not his final word.  Unwilling to be dismissed as “one of them”, the woman makes a clever reply to Jesus, pushing back with his own example, replying “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs."   She creates a moment in which Jesus can stop, and look again, and truly see her humanity and dignity.  And to the woman’s reply to him, Jesus says, "For saying that, you may go--the demon has left your daughter."  Not just, “yes, sorry about that first response, I will come and heal your daughter” but, “thanks for jarring me out of that.  Your daughter is already well again– go to her with my blessing.”

As the woman pushes back, Jesus changes his mind, he recalibrates his thoughts.  Three months ago I was on a baseball trip to California, seeing no fewer than nine games in eleven days, and while I was down there I actually skipped a game and instead took the opportunity to go to the Saturday evening service at St Mark Presbyterian in Newport Beach.  Their minister, Rev Dr Mark Davis, does a weekly online Bible commentary in which he goes deep into the original Greek text, work that is insightful and infused with a pastor’s heart.  At that evening service he was preaching on this same scripture lesson, and made the point that in the gospels, especially Mark, we don’t get a true sense of time.  These exchanges between Jesus and people are presented as if they are brief, snappy exchanges, over in the blink of an eye – or “immediately”, to use the gospel of Mark’s favourite word.  But, as Mark Davis reminded me, that’s not how human conversations actually unfold, and especially not as we think of Jesus as a traveling Rabbi who would have been well-versed in the rabbinical tradition of verbal jousting, good-spirited but edgy arguments on theological points of interest.  So Mark Davis imagines that after the woman pushes back on Jesus’ first insulting words, there might have been a lengthy silence as Jesus reconsiders his position.  Those of you who use GPS to help you find your route when driving are familiar with the “ungh-ungh, you made a mistake” sound that Google Maps or similar apps make when you have made a wrong turn and a recalibration is needed.  Well, posits Mark Davis, that’s what Jesus does here: pauses for a moment, recalibrates, and answers with love the second time, in so doing he respects the agency of the woman, restores a child to health and hope, and demonstrates the power of changing our minds, our words and our behaviours, when we are truly motivated by love.

 Last Sunday in this pulpit, Rev Steve mentioned the way that our old notions of God as almighty, all-powerful, never-changing, are ideas that many of us were raised with, but which have faded over the years as we experience what God’s amazing love looks like, applied over and over again in even the most challenging of circumstances.  This encounter in the gospel of Mark underlines that.  Jesus is open to the circumstances of this woman’s life, he’s willing to be challenged by her, he’s willing to admit that the first thing out of his mouth was not good enough, he is willing and able to change.   And as we see Jesus change his mind, it dawns on us that God’s mind can change and does change as well, as the heart of God is moved by love.

Though standard Christian dogma over the centuries forbids that God should ever change, I do not believe this to be the fact of the matter.  In stories as dramatic as the story of the great flood and the rainbow placed in the sky, God’s heart is changed by the reality of human suffering.  God steps back from anger and replaces it with a promise of peace.  God, the author of creativity itself, never leaves us and is moved by our sufferings.   God, who gave living beings the ability to adapt, also has this adaptive ability. When caught in a moment when he says something easy and hurtful, Jesus changes his mind, and in our faith history we see that God does too, always in the direction of something more just and loving than before.   As put by the Rev Dr Martin Luther King and others, “the arc of the moral universe is long – and it bends toward justice.”

In these next two years with you, Shannon and I will learn from you the story and culture of these congregations and this pastoral charge, we’ll investigate what it means to be in relationship with our neighbours, and we will be discerning God’s calling for your future.   You’ll hear more about that next week, as Shannon introduces you to the three primary questions that direct an Intentional Interim Ministry, but for now I want you to notice the adaptiveness that Jesus shows in getting past his first automatic response in order to find something more positive, productive and faithful.   That’s a skillset that all of us will need in our two years together: the ability to hear one another, to be moved and changed, and at times to change our hearts and our minds if long-held attitudes, beliefs and hopes need to be cut loose in order to make room for something new.  In the same way that Christ Jesus got past the snippy reply he blurted out without thinking, resetting in such a way that he could set aside old deeply ingrained prejudices and bring wholeness into a young girl’s life, so we are called to be open to new ways, and to change our minds and actions if that’s what’s needed for life to emerge in all its fullness.  Even as we see Jesus and God, our eternal creator adapting and changing, so must we.

God never leaves us stranded.  Jesus does not want us to stay stuck, any more than he would let himself stay stuck.  The Holy Spirit is always nudging and irritating and running ahead of us, encouraging our curiosity and our love and our heart for inclusion.  As we continued to be challenged by the needs of the world around us, and as we discern the calling that God has waiting for this pastoral charge, may we with God’s help be thoughtful, courageous, nimble and faithful.  Amen.  

References cited/consulted:

Coohill, Joseph – includes MLK quote. https://professorbuzzkill.com/2022/05/23/martin-luther-king-jr-the-arc-of-the-moral-universe-is-long-but-it-bends-toward-justice-quote-or-no-quote/

Davis, Mark. https://leftbehindandlovingit.blogspot.com/2012/09/comparing-humans-to-dogs.html

Hunt, Janet. https://dancingwiththeword.com/what-to-make-of-jesus-and-the-syrophoenician-woman/

Steelman, Austin. https://harvardichthus.org/2016/01/jesus-and-the-syrophoenician-woman-a-lesson-on-refugees-and-law-school-seals/

© 2024 Rev Greg Wooley, Osoyoos/Oliver United.

2 Samuel 11:1-12:7 - 28 July 2024 - Scarboro UC Calgary

When I think back to the Bible story books of my childhood, and the portrait they drew of King David, what I recall is this: he was the smallest and the youngest in his family, yet the prophet Samuel saw beyond those limitations when choosing someone to face the dreaded Philistine, Goliath; I recall pictures of David the poet and songwriter, and I recall the jealousy he engendered in King Saul who threw a spear at him; I recall his sorrow at the death of his dearly beloved friend Jonathan, son of King Saul; and I recall that he was the head of a royal family that started with his son Solomon and continued right up to Jesus.  In these hazy early memories of the story of David, I recall Bathsheba, and that she was beautiful, but I can assure you that the story we heard this morning was not in my bedtime Bible stories.

And no wonder:  the story of a woman bathing as required by religious custom, then being sent for by the King; a King seeing and having what he wanted, Bathsheba in no position to say no; and a dutiful husband and loyal soldier, Uriah, set up for slaughter to cover up the scandal.   As a teenager reading through the Bible for the first time I recall coming across this story, and being stopped dead in my tracks, incredulous at the low-life actions of the King.  While impressed that those constructing the Bible didn’t just pay some low-ranking scribe some hush money to make this story go away, I was astonished and disgusted by these events. How exactly, does one have power-coerced sexual relations with a woman, try to cover it up, intentionally have her husband killed on the front lines, and not only remain as King, but remain in the heart of the people as the kind of King one yearned for?

Rather than leaving that as a rhetorical question, the tools that enabled King David’s actions – and the actions of his living replicas in our day - include patriarchy, misogyny, and the power of empire; unbridled ego, lust, oh, and rampant disobedience of the 6^th 9^th and 10^th commandments, the ones about murder, and not coveting, and not covering things up with lies.  (The more things change, the more they stay the same…!)

The story of King David and Bathsheba is a story of power, abused. What it isn’t, is a story of seduction, and I need to say that in the strongest possible terms.  In preparing for this sermon, I consulted a number of sources, including some pretty conservative ones, seeking angles at this story that could help me hone what to say about it.  Where I’ve landed, is on these words of a Christian counselor in the USA named Elyse Fitzpatrick: “if there’s one thing I know it’s that the Bible’s writers… aren’t queasy at all about uncovering sin. Hence, if Bathsheba had been culpable at all, we would have heard about it. But we haven’t.

“What we do hear is that David decided to grab a little ‘me’ time and one afternoon, after he got up from napping, he went up on his roof to check out the doings in his kingdom. It was from there that he saw Bathsheba bathing herself. BTW, she wasn’t on a roof. He was. She was probably in a private courtyard. The Bible clearly states that she was … purifying herself … as required after having her period.

“So, David said to his servants, ‘Oh, I like the looks of that…get me one.’ So his servants went to her house and ‘took’ her. That Hebrew word means, ‘to get, lay hold of, seize…acquire, or buy.’ What the Bible doesn’t say is that she cunningly arranged a peep show so she could entrap the king, kill off her husband, and set herself up in cushiness for life. If that had been the case, the Bible would have said that. But it doesn’t.

“The next time we hear about her, she’s telling David she’s pregnant. The Bible doesn’t tell us her state of mind but it tells us David’s: He’s going to scheme and eventually murder to cover up his sin. At the death of her righteous husband… Bathsheba lamented and grieved for him (2 Sam 11:26). Later, she grieved for her dead firstborn son. David brought nothing but death and grief into the house of a righteous woman”.

To me Elyse sums it up well. And yet this is part of our faith story, and the driver of these actions is nothing short of a hero of the faith.  What gives?  In what way is this ‘good news’?

On this second Sunday this summer in which we engage the Ecumenical table setting of the Theological Banquet, the place at which one’s active faith response is exercised through acts of social justice, the first bit of good news I wish to offer is that God did not sweep this under the carpet.  Even the old King James Version of the Bible states it clearly: “the thing that David had done displeased the Lord”.  And to make sure David knew this displeasure and its consequences, the prophet Nathan was sent by God to speak truth to power. And while not stated in scripture, Nathan’s  heart must have been pounding double time in having to confront the King like this.

As hard as this work is to do, the reality is that unless the Church finds the nerve to speak truth to power, we end up as agents of empire.  History has shown us this. Church and colonizers have worked hand in hand to overrun Indigenous populations, and the collusion of Church and Empire continues to assert itself loud and clear each time we hear that women’s reproductive rights, the life journey of trans folks, the evidence of catastrophic climate change, and the religious rights of non-Christians, specifically targeted with the gleeful support of some branches of Christendom.  With the prophet Nathan, we become agents of gospel, carriers of the good news, when we find the chutzpah to speak truth to power. 

There is good news to be found in the breadth of Bible commentators I found that recognize the horrible position that Bathsheba was in, from the start of this story to its long-lasting consequences.  As Elyze Fitzpatrick pointed out, the Bible authors would happily have blamed Bathsheba if she carried blame, but no such blame exists.  And furthermore, if we could reach into these stories and actually talk to the characters, I would want time to hear Bathsheba tell her story, for people caught in her situation seldom have enough safety or agency to speak and be believed.  2^nd Samuel gives Uriah and David and Nathan and even Joab plenty of opportunity to speak but Bathsheba has one only line recorded: “I’m pregnant!”  If I could, I would want to hear Bathsheba, listening with non-judgmental belief to her story, including her account of the loss of her husband, Uriah, without sanitizing or minimizing her experience.  People of faith need to help restore the voice of the voiceless.  

There is good news to be found - and I find it hard to hear this let alone say it, for at times the grace of God is both baffling and overwhelming - in the path to reconciliation offered to King David by the prophet Nathan.  King David is required to own all aspects of what he did here, there will be big, enduring, heartbreaking consequences, but he is not expelled to a place of no return.  That possibility of reconciliation, which involves a bunch of other R words like repentance, restoration, restitution, and reparations, is one of the reasons why the grace of God has such enduring importance and relevance.  King David’s role in the death of his loyal soldier Uriah, and his predatory pursuit of Bathsheba, are well beyond road bumps in his legacy,  and that gives me reason to question why the royal line reaching forward to Jesus is called David’s line rather than, say, the line of Solomon or even the line of Ruth, but I’m not the one making those decisions.

And taking one small step to the side, there is good news to be found when we imagine how the Ecumenical table setting relates to this story.  By using the word “ecumenical” to describe the ministries that speak truth to power, Janet Gear reminds us that such truth-telling is not just Nathan’s job to do; the engagement of evil, the confronting of the tools of empire is something we are called to do, together: together as families, together as a community of faith, together within the Calgary Alliance for the Common Good, together as a region and denomination, together with the entire body of Christ. We, as Oikoumene, all God’s children together who seek shalom in all the earth, are called by God to be agents of the good news of the Kin-Dom of God.  We are to proclaim, through courageous advocacy our intimate connectedness to a just and loving God and with one another. We, in word and deed, are to exhibit the God’s own justice and lovingkindness that infuses all the earth, the good news of a God who calls us to be accountable but not stuck in such guilt or hopelessness that we just stay put.  We are called, together, to speak into a world where the stifling power of Empire finds countless ways, subtle and blatant, to hold sway.   As Church, we are to be Nathan in the face of what King David has done, even as we ensure that Bathsheba is heard and believed.  

It is a hard story, this, yet it calls us to engage he world in which we live with power and love and hopefulness.  It names that when evil intent is enacted, God is not unmoved.  It uplifts the importance of accountability, and the necessity of speaking truth to power. It empowers and gives voice to all who have suffered at the hands of others.  It draws us together in action, in the midst of forces that seem well beyond our capacity to address. And it sets our feet once more, on that pathway of all who have caught a glimpse of that glorious new way we hear of in Jesus, the Kin-dom of God.   As stories like this get relived over and over again, even in our day, may we be both challenged and empowered by the sacred call to engagement.  Amen.

 

References cited and consulted:

Aten, Jamie and Annan, Kent. https://www.christianitytoday.com/better-samaritan/2023/mnay/11-tips-for-preaching-trauma-informed-sermon.html

Carter Florence, Anna. “She Wasn’t on the Roof: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba, the Women of Jesus’ Genealogy.”  A lecture at the Festival of Homiletics, May 14, 2024, Pittsburgh PA. 

Fitzpatrick, Elyse. https://elysefitzpatrick.com/its-all-her-fault/

Imes, Carmen Joy. https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2022/july-web-only/rape-david-bathsheba-adultery-sexual-sin-prophet-nathan.html

Johnson, Jamie. https://livingforjesus.blog/2021/02/16/the-truth-about-david-and-bathsheba-and-why-it-matters/

McAndless, Scott. https://retellingthebible.wordpress.com/2019/08/28/episode-3-11-you-saw-her-bathing-what-were-you-doing-on-the-roof/

And to address this story with children, see VeggieTales, “King George and the Ducky.” https://youtu.be/FtKFfZ14DQ8

© 2024 Rev Greg Wooley, Scarboro United Church, Calgary AB. 

John 6: 1-15 - 14 July 2024 - Scarboro UC Calgary

Today we spend time with a well-loved gospel story known by a number of names: the feeding of the 5000, the feeding of the multitude, the miracle of the loaves and fishes. Curiously, this is one of only two miracle stories contained in all four gospels - the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, being the other one. Clearly, each of the gospel writers thought this was a story of importance … so what is it that needed and needs to be heard?

Honouring today’s table setting of the Theological Banquet, I’m going to reframe that question just a bit: what is it that we need to hear, not just as individual disciples of Jesus, but as the gathered Ekklesia, the community of the faithful? What does this say to us as Church?

It might be good to take a half step back before answering that question, to consider the nature of the miracle stories in the gospels.  I have heard miracles described as “enacted parables”, symbolic, visual presentations of the Kin-Dom of God made manifest in daily life. Within the United Church of Canada, I think this description works well, as we wonder how to take these stories amidst the tests of science and skepticism.  While I’m not closed to the idea of miracles actually happening as presented, I like the idea that they are an in-breaking of the Kin-dom of God into daily life, a story illustrating in tangible ways the force of God’s transformative and everlasting love.

With this in mind, four points present themselves from today’s gospel reading:

1.    the power of breaking bread with Jesus.

2.    the abundance we experience in God.

3.    the power of giving ALL. 

4.    the importance of children in the Kin-dom of God.

First, this is a story about breaking bread with Jesus. I put this first, not because it’s the most important point to me, but because this was such a key thrust of the writings of the early Church. Every time in which bread is broken, throughout the New Testament, the gospel writers want us to connect it to communion.  Furthermore, if we read the 6^th chapter of John to its end, the whole thing is about Jesus as the bread of life, which was a scandalous idea at the time. As followers of Jesus, as the enduring Body of Christ in the world, whenever we are at table with one another, at the sacred table of communion and when we share conversation and nourishment at a dinner table, the welcoming love of Christ is shared.  It is not a coincidence that some of Jesus’ strongest statements about inclusion were made, not in his preaching, but by who joined him at his dining table. 

When first elected as Moderator of the United Church in 2018, the Very Rev Richard Bott preached on this scripture, and he made the point that in the presence of Jesus, many of our hungers – hunger of the body, soul and spirit - are addressed: “the crowd that was there” he said, “were people who were oppressed under the weighty rule of empire, in this case the Romans.  These were people who were hungry in so many ways: hungry for freedom, for deeper connection with one another and with God.  And of course, hungry for lunch.”  As Church, we do well to remember that the Jesus who walked the shores of Galilee, and the risen Christ who walks with us now, engaged and engages all of these human hungers – all the emptiness, all the hopefulness, all the yearnings, all the worries.  All of these are part of our relationship with the Christ and those who pledge to keep doing his work in the world.

Second, in the feeding of the multitude there we experience the abundance that is so evident in God, in contrast to fears of scarcity that can shut us down… especially as Church.  Perhaps the most obvious lesson from this miracle is that a lack of material resources, while anxiety-producing, does not make a situation impossible, not even for us as Church.

The task at hand for Jesus and the disciples was daunting. There were thousands of people to feed, meal time was approaching, and there were no plans to feed them.  Not only were there no plans, even if they had planned for it, as Phillip stated to Jesus (John 6:7), ““It would take more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!”  When viewed from a purely human standpoint, the situation was impossible, and yet in the hands of Jesus,  the pittance available to them – five rough breadsticks no larger than your fist, along with two sardines – was received with gratitude, blessed, and shared, and there was abundance.

These days Churches are rightly concerned about their sustainability.  On the income side of the ledger, the list of givers is not generally increasing, nor are we getting younger, and on the expense side salaries creep upward  and the utility bills in a Church building go up at the same rate as our utilities at home.  Yet, quoting again from Richard Bott, “In this story, Jesus didn’t start with nothing…[he] took a gift freely offered from a child of the world and multiplied it, and multiplied it, and multiplied it, until everyone, including that child, was satisfied”.  Other interpreters have suggested that perhaps when the child presented his gift, others reached inside their cloaks and shared what they had brought, too, the gift of one inspiring the gifts of many.  

Broad-based solutions are not easily found and I don’t want to make glib statements here.  But I do need to say, we must not be defeated by our own sense of scarcity and say no before giving God a chance to say yes.  If this miracle story is indeed a parable enacted, perhaps the message is this:  in God’s Kin-dom there is no scarcity, and when assets at hand are wisely, unselfishly, creatively and prayerfully used, we make room for Spirit and her hidden holy abundance to emerge.

Third, the miracle demonstrates the power of giving ALL.  By all reasonable standards, the task facing Jesus and the disciples was impossible, but the first step toward the nourishment of all who had gathered came forward, not from a lightning bolt from heaven, but in the form of one child with a basic peasant’s lunch.   As far as we know, the child offered all that they had brought that day, and risked personal hunger for the sake of the common good.  As it turns out, the child was fed, and abundantly so, but that was unknown to them when the gift was offered.

This is the moment when many preachers – including me at times over the years – would make a push for “sacrificial giving”, the giving of this child’s loaves and fishes an example for each of us to “give ‘til it hurts.”  Let’s not go there.  Rather than taking this miracle story as a person-by-person guilt producer, I invite us to take one step back and ask, “what does it mean for this community of faith – the Ekklesia - to ‘give all’ in response to the call of Jesus Christ?”  Again, in my brief time with you I have seen some very positive signs, such as the way you have utilized a portion of the funds from the sale of the manse for missional purposes, and knowing you are already so inclined I leave this with you open questions.  What are the things we are holding on to, as Church, out of comfort or fear or entitlement, that will need to be released for broader benefit?  What ways of being will need to be given up, for our neighbours to be drawn to the gifts of love, justice and welcome offered by Jesus?  

Fourth and finally, the feeding of the multitude embodies the importance of children in the Kin-dom of God. All four accounts of this miracle involve a child presenting their food, “a child of the crowd, a child of the world” as Richard Bott put it. In his book, Jesus: A Biography from a Believer, historian Paul Johnson emphasizes how radical it was that Jesus spoke with, to and about women and children.   Even in our time and place, the likelihood of a child having their thoughts and desires taken seriously is not guaranteed yet Jesus, time and again, says that in the Kin-dom of Heaven, children are the model of how we relate to one another.  The Lord’s Prayer begins with an infant’s name for God, Papa or Mama. Jesus sternly rebukes the disciples when they try to keep children from him, baptism is described as re-emergence from the womb into the unedited, absolute trust of infancy, believers are directed to become like children in order to really embrace the wonders of the Kingdom.  And here, it is the selfless act of a child that saves the day.   That it is a child who makes this sacrifice is no small detail – the inherent spirituality, curiosity and generosity of children is a gift within every family of faith.  I hope and trust that this congregation and all Churches, in setting priorities for the resources and needs at hand, will never forget this.

At the Ecclesial table setting of the Theological Banquet, our responses to God’s calling are shaped by and exercised within the life and work of the Church, in the things we do here at the Church and in those things we do in the community as Church.   Together, we know the power of breaking bread with Jesus, we know the abundance we experience in God, we know what it is to give everything we have, and we are reminded time and again of the full importance of children in the Kin-dom of God. As Church, as the body of Christ, may this story from two thousand years ago inform, inspire, and guide our life.  In Jesus’ name, Amen.

 

References cited:

Bott, Richard.  Sermon preached at General Council 43, July 27, 2018: https://youtu.be/A5ETRmaRAcc?t=3192 

Gear, Janet. Undivided Love. Altona, MB: Friesen, 2022.

Gospel parallels: Matthew 14:13–21; Mark 6:31–44; Luke 9:12–17; John 6:1–14.

Johnson, Paul. Jesus: A Biography from a Believer.  Blackstone Audio, 2010. Chapter 6.

 © 2024 Rev Greg Wooley, Scarboro United Church, Calgary AB. 

 

 

Mark 6: 1-13 - 07 July 2024 - Scarboro UC Calgary

 A few times in my life, I have taken on the task of doing door-to-door fundraising, most often for a health-related charity. As an introvert, door-knocking is definitely not number one on my list of “things I like to do” but so long as I was clear on the cause, especially if I had a personal connection to it and perhaps even a first-hand story to tell, it was doable.  I will say that it became both more easily doable - and much more lucrative - when our kids were little and I could bring one along, as this both lessened the worries about a strange person standing on your doorstep in the middle of the day, and tended to defuse any longwinded debates (which generally didn’t end up with a donation, anyway).

Today’s gospel reading goes back to the earliest days of the mission and ministry of Jesus, and an early story of Christian Evangelism, twelve disciples sent out two by two to do town-to-town, door to door canvassing.  They weren’t equipped with a zippered donation bag or a receipt book or a cute child to move things along – in fact, they were ordered to have nothing, no bread, no bags, no money, not even an extra shirt - but like the door-to-door fundraiser, these two-by-two messengers had personal stories to tell.  They could tell of transformation; they could share what had caused them to interrupt their previous lives, to follow Jesus; they could bring hope through an unfolding vision of a world made new, where those in need would have their needs met, with those pushed to the fringes now in a central place of honour.  And while Mark puts a note of finality on the whole thing in telling the disciples to shake the dust off their sandals when leaving a town that did not accept them or the message, even then there is a degree of agency: the people of that town could accept or reject the message and healings of Jesus, nobody forced anyone to accept things they didn’t believe.

As a Canadian Mainline Protestant congregation in the early 21^st century, Evangelism isn’t a word or concept that comes easily to us, but in Janet Gear’s Theological Banquet, the Evangelical table setting is one of the five most commonly experienced in United Church congregations.   Having said that, we realize that in the northern hemisphere, being United Church evangelists isn’t easy, for there are two or three generations now that are straddle suspicious and dismissive of all things Christian.  ALL of Christianity is assumed to be anti-science, anti-queer, and disrespectful of people of other faiths or no faith, to the point that one of the things that United Church folk really need to “evangelize” is the notion that there IS such a thing as a progressive, inclusive Christian.  And words are only part of it; if our actions do not align with the words of love, we will not be successful in our evangelism because, frankly, we shouldn’t be.  United Methodist Bishop Robert Schnase, writing in his book Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations, encourages Churches to “practice the gracious love of Christ, respect the dignity of others, and…become part of God’s invitation to new life” as a form of evangelism that will preach what we practice and practice what we preach.    

Long-time United Church professor John Webster Grant, writing in 1983, urged our denomination to recover “the primary meaning of the word ‘evangelism’, which is not making Christians or even saving souls but publishing glad tidings.”  Evangelism, as Janet Gear reminds us, emanates from the Angelic commission to the Shepherds to share the glad tidings of a God who dwells with us and in us.  Another long-time United Church professor, John Young wrote in 2009 that in its essence, Evangelism “is not about gaining ‘numbers’, but about sharing a story, a story that Christians find life-giving and transformative, in the hopes that others may find it so”. Here again we hear of invitation: naming the good news of God’s presence in your life, my life, our lives, and by doing so, opening the door for others to go deep in their story to discern where God is moving them.  

Evangelism, in Matthew, Mark and Luke, is not just done by the leader; it’s done by disciples who have been commissioned in Jesus name to share the good news.  When Jesus sent the twelve disciples to leave the safety of the larger group and go out two-by-two, we know that their local mission work up to that point had not been easy. There was much opposition and some narrow escapes. But rather than being thwarted by the anger of his neighbours and relatives, Jesus looked at the assets at hand and said to the 12 disciples, “you go into these towns and villages, and do the things I would do.  Tell them of their hopeful future. Bring God’s healing intention to them and make them whole.  And let them look after you: trust them so much that you don’t even bring along an extra shirt, or pocket money.”  For safety’s sake, and to always provide a witness to the truth of what was being said, they were sent in pairs into the nearby towns and villages with the power to do everything that Jesus would have done. In so doing, there were six pairs plus Jesus, doing the work that used to be mostly done by Jesus alone.  

That greatly increased the number of workers committed to the task – Luke also speaks of a second commissioning of 70 or 72 disciples, but Matthew and Mark make no mention of this, in Matthew and Mark it is just one sending of twelve disciples - and it also meant that they needed to have a whole lotta trust in one another, which started with loving one another, and listening to and learning from each other.  That is still the case. The United Church Sunday School curriculum that Amy and I have using this summer, entitled I am a changemaker, is written to help participants develop a pattern of anti-racism in their lives, and it uses a pattern that I believe is also directly applicable to our lives as evangelists:

·       it starts with, and keeps coming back to love;

·       it then listens to and learns from people’s experiences;

·       it requires commitment to the cause and empowers the participants;

·       it calls us to notice and celebrate everyone;

·       and it ends with the co-creation, with others and with Christ, of a beautiful future. 

It builds from one step to the next in a way that might seem linear, but it grounds each step in love, because love – love for our lives, love for our souls, love for our neighbours, love for our world - that we have our connection with Christ and our impetus to draw others to him.

As a community of faith committed to that two-fold love of Jesus – love of God and love of neighbour – there is much that is done here at Scarboro that would be good to, well, evangelize about. I’m just here for a short wee while, but I am so pleased and impressed at the range of community groups that feel at home in this place, beginning with the broad and authentic welcome expressed to twelve-step recovery groups, your long-standing and visible commitments as an Affirming congregation, and events like the soup, socializing and bingo nights.  I sense that there is around here a general sense of trust that this is a place of welcome and safety and spiritual honesty, committed to justice and invitational love, and that is both something to share and something to build from.

We need Evangelists – hey, Christ needs Evangelists - willing to do and speak of all this work: the things we do in-house, the initiatives that reach out from here to our neighbourhood, the projects that reach to national or even international needs.  John Young, in the article referenced earlier, outlines the change within the United Church of Canada, a significant focus on Evangelism in the 1950s morphing into a greater focus on Mission in the 1980s.  Over those decades, there came to be a greater desire in United Churches to tangible acts of service - doing Christ’s work - and less enthusiasm to put words to it.  While still putting our hands to the plough in acts of service, we also need to re-learn the art of naming where God is present in the things we do: to remind ourselves, and to set a sacred context for those who are yearning for something deeper in their lives but cannot put words to that yearning. (And, as mentioned earlier, to help folks to see that to be a Christian does not necessarily confine one to being “narrow.”)

Although the gospel of Mark implies that the pairs of disciples did not go very far into the world, there was a rhythm to their evangelistic work.  They started close to home where there was both familiarity and resistance, then they went into towns they’d never visited before, relying on the guidance of local people and the grace of God.   In going out into the world, and coming back to a place of nurturance with Jesus, they kept learning and growing, risking and inviting, encouraging change and being changed, in his name.  At our best, we continue live within that rhythm, of doing, and believing, and paying attention and listening and doing again, as people committed to Christ’s agenda of powerful, inclusive, reconciling love.    

In all of this we give thanks: for words of life that give us hope; for all we do together, for the work we do on our own, for the times we feel strong in what we are doing, and for the times when the support of loving Christian community is so essential.  We give thanks for the opportunity to gather here in the Sanctuary, for the connections we continue to have with those joining us online, and for the words and deeds by which we share the evangel, the “glad tidings” of God in Christ.  All of this, is pure gift from God, experienced in supportive community, in simple acts of advocacy and kindness, and in broader engagement in the name of Jesus, who lived and died and lives again. Thanks be to God, Amen.

References cited:

https://amazingbibletimeline.com/blog/q28_twelve_apostles_background/

Gear, Janet. Undivided Love.  Altona, MB: Friesen, 2022.

Grant, John Webster “The United Church and its Heritage in Evangelism”, Touchstone 1, No. 3 (1983) p. 8. <cited by Young, below>

Ralph Connor Memorial United Church.  Sunday sermon recording, July 3, 2022 – Luke 10: 1-12. https://youtu.be/KMXGvSh3_0Y?t=1039

Schnase, Robert. Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations.  Nashville: Abingdon, 2007.

United Church of Canada. I am a Changemaker: teaching anti-racism with children.  Toronto, 2024.

Young, John H. https://touchstonecanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Jan-2009-Article3.pdf

 

© 2024 Rev Greg Wooley, Scarboro United Church, Calgary AB.