1Corinthians 12: 12-27 - March 2, 2025

Annual Meeting Sunday: preached by Greg in Osoyoos, Shannon in Oliver!  

Last Sunday’s reading (1 Corinthians 12: 1-11) and today’s reading follow one right after the other and, together, form one discussion about Christian Unity by the Apostle Paul.  In last week’s segment, Paul listed the spiritual gifts that different community members bring to their local Church and encouraged people to honour this full range of gifts, rather than bragging about their own. This, he hoped, would help a fractious group of Christ-followers in the city of Corinth to develop some “holy manners” and celebrate the diversity that was present in their faith community.

This morning’s reading builds on that plea for respect, using the metaphor of body parts working together in one body, that is, the Body of Christ.  Some of it is quite funny, with a hand, a foot, an eye, and an ear debating their importance, and Paul also talked about body parts that are more, um, private.  There’s an absurdist humour here that would be right at home in a political cartoon or Monty Python sketch: our squabbling as Christians is as productive as an eye arguing with an ear.  In this metaphor of the body of Christ and its varied members, I sense that Paul is not just talking about the local faith community in Corinth, but about the way the entire body of Christ either works together, or it doesn’t work at all.  

He writes (1 Corinthians 12: 26-27, CEV),

If one part of our body hurts, we hurt all over. If one part of our body is honoured, the whole body will be happy. Together you are the body of Christ. Each one of you is part of his body. 

The way that the joys and sorrows of others is shared by the whole is so true on the local congregational level.  The hurts borne by one are borne by all: when Church folks are grieving or in the midst of hard transitions, or when there is tumultuous conflict, the whole congregation is impacted.  Likewise, the joys and the God Moments experienced and spoken by one, are celebrated by all.  If we consider this dynamic on a larger scale, it speaks directly to the situation before us in 2025.

One of the three questions for our Interim Ministry time is, “who is our neighbour”? which also implies the question, “what are the needs of our neighbours”? This invites us to imagine how these congregations might address some of the needs of the south Okanagan.  How do we, as a manifestation of the body of Christ, share Christ’s love with others, beyond what we do in Sunday Worship?  {Osoyoos: Fortunately, we already have some answers to that, in the work of the Thrift Shop and in the energetic connection with Desert Sun that is now forming.} {Oliver: We can build on the long history of the Soup Kitchen and the community engagement with historic drives like the Christmas Hampers organized by the Knights of Columbus, and the more current support of the warming shelter in town.} These are great things for us to celebrate and build on.  How else might we embody the love of Christ? Are there, for example, ways in which we as Church could function as an “island of sanity” in this time of national and global high anxiety, or come alongside folks already doing this work?  As we seek to be faithful to our Christian calling, we also know a blunt reality: congregations that do not serve a key role in the community around them are already in countdown mode to their closure. 

This outward movement, this “drawing the circle wide”, connects us as a congregation to the townsfolk around us, and there is another aspect I would like to mention: the ecumenical aspect. When we were training for ministry at the Vancouver School of Theology, one third of the students were United Church and one third were Anglican.  The other third were everything under the sun: students who were Presbyterian, United Methodist, Lutheran, Roman Catholic and Unitarian, classmates who had grown up Jewish and Plymouth Brethren and agnostic, 20 year olds and 60 year olds, Canadians and Americans and folks from elsewhere; and in the midst of that glorious diversity we had instilled in all of us, an understanding that every ministry we would undertake had to be understood as part of the entire body of Christ.  As we work toward our Interim Ministry goal to build partnerships with Desert Sun in Osoyoos and St. Edward’s Anglican in Oliver, and be open to other partnerships as they emerge – we need to ask ourselves continuously: does this, or does this not, build up the body of Christ?

As we prepare for our Annual Meeting, then, a few minutes from now, a time which will focus on the past, present and future of this congregation, I pray for the wellbeing of all the Churches here in Osoyoos and Oliver, that they in their own way will hear the calling of a reconciling, loving and inclusive God, and reach out to broken hearts of all shapes with unconditional love.  Together, our United Church pastoral charge and Churches very different from us, are all called to loving, life-affirming service, and when we get it right, the Body of Christ is built up and our Lord smiles.  As we focus on our work as a local congregation, I pray for the wellbeing of The United Church of Canada as a whole as we approach our 100^th anniversary; and as one who believes that God speaks in many ways to the people of the world, I pray also for the health of all faith communities besides our Christian Churches.  As so much effort is being put these days by the world’s power-mongers into labelling people and pitting nation against nation, the more ways we can work together for the common good, the better.  Two thousand years ago, the Apostle Paul called us to respect one another’s gifts, even those we do not understand, and the tumult in the world today demands that we lift up the personhood of all ethnicities, all genders and gender expressions, all personal circumstances.  When we do so, we are Christ’s body.

And we hear Paul’s words once more:

If one part of our body hurts, we hurt all over. If one part of our body is honoured, the whole body will be happy. Together you are the body of Christ. Each one of you is part of his body.

I pray for health, wholeness, opportunity and joy for every bit of that body, and give thanks for the opportunities for service that God continues to present to us. Thanks be to God, Amen.

For further reading:

Vancouver School of Theology. https://vst.edu/about/history/#:~:text=Out%20of%20this%20exploration%2C%20Vancouver,officially%20became%20associated%20with%20VST.

Wheatley, Margaret “Meg”. “Islands of Sanity” outlined: https://margaretwheatley.com/books/restoring-sanity/

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

 

Luke 6: 27-38 - February 16, 2025

 

Before I say anything specific about the difficult words of today’s gospel reading, I want to say four things about the Jesus of my understanding:

·       Jesus Christ is love incarnate.  In his words and deeds, the cuddly ones and the challenging ones, we see what it is to be a person infused in God’s own love.

·       The way of Jesus is the way of peace; peace, understood through the Jewish concept of shalom which is typified by such words as harmony, wholeness, tranquility, dignity.

·       From his life experience, Jesus understands power, and I trust what he says about it; as a Jew living under Roman rule, he lived under oppression and in his path to the cross he experienced what happens when power is abused. In the face of all that, Jesus chooses the healing power of love.

·       The grace of Christ Jesus opens us to new life by the power of forgiveness, a forgiveness which still involves accountability, repentance and restitution.  

I lead with these four points, and will leave them on screen throughout today’s message, because they remind us of the loving heart of Jesus and the passion that Jesus has for those who have been mistreated.   I also recognize that in every congregation there are folks who live with the after-effects of trauma, and that needs to inform how I approach our reading from the gospel of Luke.  In leaving these words on screen about Jesus, our loving, empowering saviour, I hope that everything I say from here on in will be understood within the embrace of his abounding love.

Theologian Dale C. Allison wrote a book entitled, The Sermon on the Mount: Inspiring the Moral Imagination.  That subtitle, “inspiring the moral imagination” is a great description of what Jesus was attempting to do in his very first sermon to his gathered disciples, his opportunity to set the tone for everything to come.   Rather than developing a new form of legalism, in which he defines rules for our lives and then punishes disobedience, Jesus assumes that those who came to him were yearning for something new, uplifting and life-changing. In answer to that yearning, Jesus engaged their imaginations: he invited them to imagine with him a new realm, the Kingdom or Kin-dom of God, a world made new where everything is answerable to love.  To spur their creativity, Jesus said,

“Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you; pray for those who mistreat you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also”

Love and pray for your enemies, says Jesus – turn the other cheek.   These words may sound foolhardy, but these are not words of naivete, or a worldview through rose coloured glasses; they were spoken by one who knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of hatred.  As such, we can be confident that Jesus would never recommend a system that rewards the oppressor; Jesus would never tell someone who is already in a vulnerable position to do nothing to keep themselves safe.  Jesus, the Prince of Peace, a peace based in justice, wholeness and lovingkindness would have none of that. Yes, in the centuries since Jesus, overlords and abusers have coopted these words to further disempower those whom they mistreated, but the way of Jesus draws us away from elevating the power of hatred, proposing instead a sacred path of reconciling love.

Love and pray for your enemies; turn the other cheek. Hard words, yes, but let’s hold them not as a rulebook with a “do this or else” attached to them, but as words intended to inspire our moral imagination.  These are words in which Jesus invites us, in these days when each day brings new shapes of aggression from the new governing regime in the US, to envision our Church and our households as what Meg Wheatley calls “islands of sanity:” places where the human spirit can live and thrive, even in the midst of toxicity. Jesus invites us, not to ignore the danger or stay silent, but to reject the lure to respond to hatred with hatred, aggression with aggression, spite with spite. Friends, what would it be like, if we as individuals and as Church, could retain the fullness of love amidst this hot mess, even while standing firm against its dangers? 

Psychologist Carl Rogers, in the mid 1950s, developed the concept of “Unconditional Positive Regard”, in which I step away from my anger and judgmental feelings toward those who really push my buttons and choose, instead, to hold them in love. To me, this is the love that Jesus calls me to have for others, even those who have named me as enemy.  This doesn’t mean their words and actions go unchallenged, and I will never put myself into unsafe situations with them, ever, but it does push me to dig beneath my immediate knee-jerk emotional responses, and envision instead the core of my being interacting with the core of their being; an interaction which is respectful, fair-minded, even loving.  Whether it’s an infuriating public figure, or someone who has been your personal nemesis over the years, the goal is the same.  We’re not going to be on each other’s Christmas card lists, but Jesus invites us to choose a positive (or at least neutral) emotional response.  

As I consider “love your enemies”, I think I can get there. If I have to. I guess.   But when it comes to “turning the other cheek” well, that seems dangerous and an awful lot harder.  

One thing that needs to be dealt with in order to even engage these difficult words of Jesus, is the frequently quoted words of Deuteronomy 19, “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”  In their historical context, “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” was a way for the Jewish Law to say, “when someone harms you, your retribution can only be equal to the wrong, you are not allowed to accelerate things by taking extra punishment”.  That may not sound progressive, but it was in its day: rather than upping the ante each time you were wronged, you could only get even, rather than increasing the violence by taking a punitive bonus.   Jesus then goes one step beyond Deuteronomy and invites us to imagine and co-create with him a world in which the cycle of violence ends.  We see moves in this direction in practices of restorative justice in parts of Canada, particularly in Indigenous settings, with a goal of rebuilt relationships, rather than punishment; this encourages me to believe that new ways are possible.  The non-violent pattern of Jesus is the way of the Kin-dom of God, the place where Shalom unfolds in all its beauty.    

As he moves us beyond retributive justice, Jesus is not intending that his followers just absorb suffering, and he is definitely not saying we just stand back as someone else is mistreated.  What Jesus draws his followers away from, is the easy slide into a life in which the thing that motivates us to get up in the morning, is lingering hatred.  In the words of Malachy McCourt, “Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”  Jesus invites us to a new way of being, a much better future than that.

Resentment, getting even, allowing my anger to be satisfied, these are things Jesus calls us away from.  Jesus calls us to forgive one another, even as we rely on God’s forgiving grace in our lives, but this does not cancel the importance of accountability.  Years ago, I read a story by an evangelical Christian author, who told the story of her family being abandoned by her father when she was quite young, and the struggles that ensued.  Decades later, Dad came waltzing back into her life, seeking forgiveness.  Yes, she said to him, by the grace of Christ she forgave him; she released him from her anger, but she did not trust him or feel safe around him, and her forgiveness did not release him from accountability. Saying that she forgave him was one thing, but his saying sorry wasn’t going to change the life-altering changes that his wife and kids experienced when he walked out on them.  Even in the realm of “turn the other cheek,” my friends, there are boundaries.  Actions have consequences in our human relationships, even in a world of forgiveness.

Which brings me to a specific example which we’ve been dealing with behind the scenes in our worship planning. You may have noticed that we stopped using a sung Lord’s Prayer that was used here for many years, and are starting to test-drive some other versions with hopes of finding a new favourite. The reason for leaving the previous version and seeking a new one, is that four years ago it came to light that the composer of the previous musical setting had for decades sexually abused dozens of young women and girls, and his music workshops were a significant venue for this grooming.  As a result, we are joining with many congregations and his music publisher in not using his music. This both is to let the women who have brought these complaints – very few of whom have received apologies of any sort - know that they have been believed, and because each usage of this song puts a few pennies of royalty money into the perpetrator’s pockets.   So I ask myself: can I find it in myself to hold this man’s life in unconditional high regard? Yes.  Do I believe that his earnest confession will be heard by God? Yes.  But even with those two yes’s, are there consequences to his reprehensible actions? Also yes. The words of Jesus about love and forgiveness are not intended to give carte blanche to those who repeatedly make others’ lives a misery.

Throughout my words this morning, I hope the words on screen have helped to place the things I’ve been sharing within the things we know about Jesus:

•        Jesus Christ is love incarnate.

•        The way of Jesus is the way of peace.

•        Jesus knows how power works, and chooses the healing power of love.

•        The grace of Christ invites forgiveness…and accountability.

In his difficult invitation to love and pray for our enemies, and turn the other cheek, Jesus invites us to new life, a life with him in which we imagine the power of love surpassing all the hate-filled nonsense presently filling our world.  Jesus frees us, if we choose to accept the gift, from a baseline hatred which only perpetuates and intensifies the brokenness.  Christ Jesus invites us to engage our creative imaginations in the pursuit of new realm of shalom, to put away hatred and mean-spiritedness as we welcome his love-based ethic into our interactions. When we let love be our guide, we say yes to Christ’s glorious vision, and life truly comes alive.  May this be so, Amen.  

References cited/consulted:

Allison, Dale C. The Sermon on the Mount: Inspiring the Moral Imagination.  NYC: Crossroad, 1999.

Anderson, Amy Rees. https://www.forbes.com/sites/amyanderson/2015/04/07/resentment-is-like-taking-poison-and-waiting-for-the-other-person-to-die/

Government of Canada. https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/jr/gladue/p4.html

Palmer, Rodney A. https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5292&context=pubs

Ravitzky, Aviezer. https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/shalom/

Rousselle, Christine. https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/248588/new-allegations-against-david-haas-prompt-top-music-publisher-to-sever-ties-with-hymn-composer

Wheatley, Margaret. https://margaretwheatley.com/books/restoring-sanity/

Wikipedia. “Unconditional Positive Regard » https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconditional_positive_regard#:~:text=Unconditional%20positive%20regard%2C%20a%20concept,context%20of%20client%2Dcentred%20therapy.

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

Luke 6: 17-26 - February 9, 2025

Later today, the Super Bowl’s Lombardi  will be awarded, and regardless of which team wins, Kansas City or Philadelphia, in the post-game interviews it is virtually guaranteed that players will point heavenward and give thanks to God and Jesus for the blessings that allowed them to play well and achieve this goal.

At one level, I get this and even admire it: it’s great to live with a sense of gratitude, and to interpret one’s accomplishments and high points as blessings from God.  No, I don’t think God gives one thought to who wins a sporting events, only to the health of its participants; but if we understand God as our source and destination, it makes sense that the ecstatic moment of victory would be perceived as a “God Moment.”

What’s funny, though, is that when he had a forum to name the places and people where God’s blessings are most easily found, Jesus came up with a very different list of those who are considered especially blessed by God: the poor, the hungry, those who grieve, those who are reviled on Christ’s account. Our reading this morning, from Luke, remembers it as the Sermon on the Plain, while the gospel of Matthew remembers it as the Sermon on the Mount, but whatever the topography, both sermons begins with similar core lists of those who experience the presence of God in all its fullness: the poor, the hungry, the grief-stricken, the reviled.   Matthew’s version (5:1-11) adds the meek, the merciful, the pure in heart, the righteous and the peacemakers to this the list of the blessed.

What Jesus says here is nothing short of counter-cultural in his day - and ours. This isn’t, “Blessed are you when you win the championship, blessed are you when your stocks triple in value, blessed are you when your social media page has the most followers” and it most definitely is not, “blessed are you when you try to bully your neighbours into submission”.  No, the list of blessed ones spoken by Jesus, as remembered by Luke, is this: 

“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
²¹ “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.
“Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.
²² “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. ²³ Rejoice on that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven, for that is how their ancestors treated the prophets”.

Although Matthew’s list of the beatitudes is more familiar and beautiful in its prose, I appreciate how direct the words are in Luke’s gospel.  In Luke, Jesus isn’t just speaking about “those people out there in the world somewhere who are blessed” in the distant, third-person way remembered by Matthew.  No, in Luke, Jesus looks directly at his audience and says, “YOU are blessed: You, who are poor, hungry, bereaved, reviled.  You, YOU are blessed by God’s holy presence in your hard times and when things improve.  And they WILL improve. God is with you in your tears and God is still with you when you are released from your suffering. God will rejoice, even dance with you when things get better”.

ALL of this, I find so hopeful and so necessary in the deeply strange days in which we live.  Jesus, well-acquainted with mean-spirited leadership, stands in complete solidarity with those whose lives are made miserable, either by the circumstances of their lives or the specific actions of those who hold power over them.  While I don’t want to wallow in the weirdness we Canadians are experiencing, I cannot step into the pulpit and ignore what’s going on in: not just the tariffs being dangled over our heads, not just the disrespect of suggesting that Canada is nothing more than the 51^st state-in-waiting, but even more so it’s the targeting of entire populations of people that is so evil: women, immigrants, people of colour, people of diverse sexual expression, all singled out and summarily blamed, mocked and dismissed (or as Jesus put it, hated and excluded and reviled and defamed). Things are broken in so many ways right now, in much of the world, not just here; and as followers of Jesus we can’t just ignore that.  

We can’t ignore it, but neither can it defeat us. For amidst that brokenness, amidst the seeds of chaos so generously sown, we seek rootedness and solid footing and confident hope, we seek good news, and we find all these as we gather in the name of Jesus.  Looking directly at those seeking his path of new life Jesus says “don’t you believe it when the power of Empire tries to demean you or unsettle you or threaten you. You who are impoverished, you who are hungry, you who have cause to weep, you who are being rounded up and sent off, you are held in the very heart of God.  You are beloved. You are BLESSED.”  

There are times when the Church is told to “stay in its lane”, and in his words of power Jesus defines “our lane.”  As those who hold the responsibility to be Christ’s hands and feet and heart and voice in the world, we are to stay informed, to identify who is most besieged and stand in loving and rugged solidarity with them; and when we are among those being targeted, when we are the ones losing sleep with worry, we are to recognize God’s sturdy, loving presence within us and around us and between us.

While Matthew only lists blessings, this morning’s reading from Luke goes on beyond the list of blessings to list a short list of woes:

““woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.
²⁵ “Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.
“Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.
²⁶ “Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.”

For the most part, the ministry of Jesus either speaks of making things tangibly better for people who suffer, doing things here on earth to release them from economic, political or religious the power of illness, or fear, or violence.  Jesus speaks about the new realm to come, the Kin-dom of God or the Kingdom of Heaven, but he actually speaks very little about “heaven” in the way we understand it.  In this list of woes following the list of blessings, though, we clearly hear implications not only for life here on earth, but eternal consequences. To those who are under the pressures of life, Jesus speaks of blessedness and better days to come, here and eternally.  But tor those who are on the upper side of things pressing down, the message is also clear: enjoy your privilege now, because you’ll be singing a different tune in the hereafter.  

As much as I want to turn this into a simple binary, with me standing confidently on the “blessed” side of this and some broadly sinister “them” , the bad guys, receiving the woes, we all know that life isn’t that simple.  I hear the words of Jesus about those whose lives are typified by comfort and ease, and I feel the sting. My own comfort, my own privilege demands that I repent of some of my behaviours and attitudes, and the grace of Christ makes it possible to change. In our United Church Creed, we name Jesus as “our judge and our hope” and that is so true in these words of blessings and woes and what we do about those in a world filled with injustice.   

In his transformational work, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey’s second and third habits are “start with the end in mind” and “put first things first.”  To me, that’s also the intent of what Jesus is saying here, in listing both the blessings and the woes.  Jesus, in his person, in his words, in his deeds, and, yes, in his death and resurrection, reminds us that the end goal is the same as the present goal -  to live a life fully intertwined with the heart of God, a life of depth and meaning that will transcend even the power of death.   In saying that the poor, the hungry, the bereaved and the reviled are blessed, Jesus is not recommending these as conditions to aim toward, but he is saying that when you are in those places, you can be confident of God’s loving care and you are likely to rely upon it.  When life is hard, God in Christ holds you close, opening you to something better and brighter and more life-affirming.  When we, as Church, are present to people in their suffering, raising a voice where a voice needs raising, we are close to the heart of God.  When we acknowledge both our privileges and our hurts as we imagine the future of the Church, when we seek repentance and reconciliation, we also come close to the heart of God.   We “put first things first” and “start with the end in mind” when we acknowledge that life with God STARTS NOW and has no end.  Jesus sets the priorities, and empowers us with love.  

With that in mind I end with a quote from one of my favourite progressive Christian bloggers, Debie Thomas: “I think what Jesus is saying in this Gospel is that I have something to learn about discipleship that my [comfortable] life circumstances will not teach me. Something to grasp about the beauty, glory, and freedom of the Christian life that I will never grasp until God becomes my everything, my all, my go-to, my starting place, and my ending place. Something to humbly admit about the limitations of my privilege. Something to recognize about the radical counter-intuitiveness of God’s priorities and promises….  Something to gain from the humility that says, ‘Those people I think I'm superior to in every way?  They have everything to teach me.’” 

Debie concludes, “Blessed are you who are poor, hungry, sad, and expendable. Why? Because you have everything to look forward to. Because the Kingdom of God is yours… Lord, help me to sit with woe, and learn the meaning of blessing.” Amen.   

References cited:

Borg, Marcus. Speaking Christian: why Christian words have lost their power and how they can be restored. SF: HarperRow, 2012. (pages 46-51)

Covey, Steven.  The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, accessed at https://www.franklincovey.com/

Thomas, Debie. https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2089-blessings-and-woes

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

Luke 5: 1-11 - February 2, 2025

“Zebedee looks around at the nets still to be mended, no sons to help with the work, his remaining employees staring at him wondering what to do next. ‘It looks like they’re gone, lads” he says to the rest of the crew. ‘We’ll all need to do a bit more until I can take on more help.’

“He blames himself.  Zebedee inherited a boat and the love of fishing from his own father, and he has built it into something. [But] things have always been hard with those boys, James and John. They did not love fishing in the way that he did.  So their departure all of a sudden with Jesus could not be called a complete surprise.

“Zebedee likes Jesus. A young man with morals and strength of character, and he loves the things Jesus says about God. He loves what he says about justice for the poor. Zebedee’s sons listen, too, along with their friend Simon. Zebedee noticed they were working harder, were more pleasant to be with, and he finally had the relationship he’s always wanted with his sons, sons who, he believed, could be real business partners with him. The sons who were turning into moral and just men.

“Then, one day, this day, Jesus came and said, ‘It’s time. Let’s go.’  And they just followed him. They left Zebedee with kisses but no tears. They seemed so happy and excited, and very, very gone.

“Why were they so eager to go? Did he not appreciate them enough? And what about his own spiritual life? Even at his age, wouldn’t he love to go have this spiritual adventure? He couldn’t get up and leave even if he wanted to. He has responsibilities—the boat, his home, his wife, his other sons and daughters, not to mention his customers and the poor widows in the community, who rely on the unsold fish he gives them at the end of the day. Who would feed them all if he left?

“The next day Zebedee fishes, then he sits at the dock with the workers, mending nets and talking. He misses his sons so much his chest aches, he envies their new adventure, yet his own call continues. He is here at home, mending, fishing, feeding. His sons were called to go with Jesus; Zebedee is called to stay behind: to pray, to work, to love, to do.”

This story, adapted from a story by Melissa Bane Sevier, imagines both the backstory and consequences of Luke’s account of the calling of Simon Peter and his partners in fishing, the sons of Zebedee, James and John.  And indeed, every time we hear the call of Jesus, there is a call to something but also a call away from something.  And while Luke focuses on the excitement of the venture for those who were willing to drop everything and follow, and the possibility of an abundant catch in the name of Jesus, there is always in the background a Zebedee, an empty boat, nets that will need to be mended by someone else.  And as we consider our call to discipleship, this rightly gives us pause.

I am so thankful to my friend, Melissa, for retelling the story in a way that helps me see with Zebedee’s eyes. You see, Zebedee is a “stayer” while I come from a long line of “leavers” – people who have left the family home to pursue new opportunities.  My grandfather left the family farm in Lambton County, Ontario 110 years ago to pursue a call to Ministry; my parents moved our family west to Regina in 1964, never to return to Ontario except for visits; Shannon and I left Saskatchewan for good in 1994 when we came to Alberta and now BC; and by the time they were in their early 20s, all three of our children had moved on. Many of you have made moves far more dramatic than this, perhaps even when you moved to the South Okanagan.  With each of those moves away, we have left, but there have been folks who have stayed behind, who have felt the pain of separation without going anywhere.  Each decision has its own set of costs and benefits, as we embrace a call to stay, or a call to leave.

What might that mean for us, in our time and place?  What is the call that Christ has for your life, and does it feel mostly like a call toward something, or a call away from something, or a call to dig in where you are and go deeper?

It could be, that the call for your life is like call of Zebedee: the call to stay, while change is all around you.  Perhaps it dates to a big change in your employment, or the ending of a primary relationship, or when you retired; perhaps you are recently or not-so-recently bereaved, or impacted by chronic health concerns; whatever it is, you may be the one left with the task of figuring out what life has for you where you are.  Jesus spoke about the Kin-dom of God as something that was “near” or “at hand”– in one sense, already within arm’s reach where you are. Parker Palmer writes, (pp.114-115): “in silence and solitude, alone with the [Holy One]… God’s promise of abundance comes to us not as future possibility but as a present reality.”  As we go deep with God, even amidst experiences of emptiness, or loneliness, or loss due to change, we have opportunities to rediscover the One who has loved us since the beginning and listen for hints as to who we are to be amidst these new realities.

It could also be, that the calling to us is shaped more like the calling that Jesus issued to his first disciples: a calling away, a calling toward.  Jesus had good news to share, and knew that he could not possibly share it all on his own, so he enlisted helpers from all walks of life.   While many of us recoil at the notion of “evangelism,” perhaps recalling wild-eyed efforts to rescue us from the fires of hell, the reality is that the life-affirming message of Jesus Christ is not heard often enough these days. We need to be “Jesus people” once again, to proclaim the good news by acts of courage and kindness done in Christ’s name.  We need to embrace the notion that the abundance described by Luke may still be possible!  From my experience, people who associate Church with judgmentalism and anti-scientific narrowness, are often amazed when they actually hear of the openness and sophistication of Christ’s teachings, the courage of how he lived it out, and the way his followers are called to have a broad, inclusive, reconciling, justice-seeking love in response to his calling on our lives.   The more we embrace and live out the love of Christ Jesus, the more the world will know and benefit from his unbridled love.

During an interim time, we have three questions before us:  who are we? Who are our neighbours? And, what is God calling us to?  So what about that third question, what might we being called toward, or away from, or what are we to do more of? Are there actions or involvements that you have been mulling, callings that have been pestering you lately?  Or are there wonderings in your heart and mind, such as “I wonder why our Church doesn’t do…?” or “I wonder if we have the capacity as a Church to…?”  Are there older versions of Church life that we need to let go of, in order for new ways of being to arise?  Or are there specific needs in these south Okanagan communities that we could more actively engage?

Rather than giving today’s sermon a nice, neat ending, all wrapped up and tied with a bow, by putting forward an answer to these questions, it is more wise and more faithful to leave these as open questions.  If these kinds of wonderings about our calling as a faith community are bubbling within you, Shannon and I invite you to write them down and share them with us and with the Transition Team.  At coffee time today, you will find a sheet of paper for that purpose: if you’ve got something to share right away, please write it down & leave your page in the basket provided; if you need to mull on this a bit, take the sheet home and bring it to Church next Sunday, or give it to a member of the transition team! (Anita, Nancy and Cathie - Osoyoos, Doreen, Anna and Heather - Oliver).  And as we consider those things we are called to do and be, please know that some of what we are called to are things we are already doing. As we gather this information from you, we do so with hopes of new ideas, but also invite you to name any efforts we are already undertaking that make the good news of Jesus Christ real for us and others.

To all of you: the “leavers” and the “stayers,” the planners and the doers, the ones who give us roots and the ones who give us wings: know that the loving call of Christ is a call to you, and to us as congregations, to embody love and life and light where you are and, perhaps, in new places or in new ways.  It is also a call to unexpected sources of abundance, for hanging out with Jesus does tend to have surprising results!  What an exciting possibility, and what good people to have with you on the journey.  Thanks be to God, Amen.

References cited:

Bane Sevier, Melissa.  “Left Behind,” a posting on her “Contemplative Viewfinder” blog: https://melissabanesevier.wordpress.com/2017/01/16/left-behind/ (NOTE: the italicized portions are edits from Melissa’s original story)

Palmer, Parker. The Promise of Paradox.  San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1980.

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

 

Luke 4: 14-30 - January 26, 2025

 

Imagine with me that you’re in Nazareth, up in the high country of Galilee, roughly 2000 years ago. Jesus, son of Mary and of Joseph, a local craftsman, has seemed a bit unsettled lately.  There’s lots of work to for a young man who grew up with a trade, but Jesus seemed distracted.

Jesus knew he needed to figure things out, and withdrew to the Judean wilderness (Luke 4: 1-13) for a spirit quest.   Some forty days later he returned to Galilee, settling by the lakeshore at Capernaum (Matthew 4:13), and he started teaching at local synagogues. It was going well.

Imagine, then, what a high point it would have been to return home, to teach at the local Synagogue where he’d been known since childhood.  Jesus carefully selected a scroll, from the 61^st chapter of the prophet Isaiah, and he read:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.
God has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
¹⁹ to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” (Luke 4: 19-19, quoting Isaiah 61: 1-2)

Jesus closed the scroll, and gave it back to the attendant, and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. ²¹ And he said to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

What a high, holy moment, surely something great would happen next: either Jesus, local boy made good, would get hired on the spot to have oversight over the local synagogue. Or perhaps, knowing that Jesus was already exercising a successful, growing ministry, they would have passed the hat to raise money to support that venture, and their generosity would have buoyed him emotionally and financially as he returned to the seashore.

But neither of those good things happened. Let’s return to the words of our scribe, Luke, as recounted in The Voice Bible translation: ( Luke 4: 22-30).

²² At first everyone was deeply impressed with the gracious words that poured from Jesus’ lips. Everyone spoke well of Him and was amazed that He could say these things.

[but then, they said] Wait. This is only the son of Joseph, right?

[Jesus replied] ²³ You’re about to quote the old proverb to Me, “Doctor, heal yourself!” Then you’re going to ask Me to prove Myself to you by doing the same miracles I did in Capernaum. ²⁴ But face the truth: hometowns always reject their homegrown prophets.

²⁵ Think back to the prophet Elijah. There were many needy Jewish widows in his homeland,, when a terrible famine persisted there for three and a half years. ²⁶ Yet the only widow God sent Elijah to help was an outsider from Zarephath in Sidon.^[g]

²⁷ It was the same with the prophet Elisha. There were many Jewish lepers in his homeland, but the only one he healed—Naaman—was an outsider from Syria.^[h]

²⁸ The people in the synagogue became furious when He said these things. ²⁹ They seized Jesus, took Him to the edge of town, and pushed Him right to the edge of the cliff on which the city was built. They would have pushed Him off and killed Him, ³⁰ but He passed through the crowd and went on His way.

Part of our Christian heritage, from day one, even before Jesus had called his first disciples, has been to speak truth to power.  It was Christ’s calling then, and our calling now. We saw a moving example of this in Washington this week when the Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, calmly but directly called upon the President to show mercy upon those who were scared. Those words, spoken with such courage, were truly speaking truth to power.  Jesus spoke truth to power in his choice of scriptures from Isaiah, which spoke of God’s holy mission of “preaching good news to the poor, release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, liberating those who are oppressed and proclaiming the acceptable year of the Lord.”  Jesus also spoke truth to power in reminding the people that people they consider outsiders are critically important in God’s plan. And the response from his neighbours and perhaps even some relatives, was to hustle him out of town and threaten to hurl him off a cliff.

Even though I have been engaged in Church leadership in one form or another for more than forty years, part of me still wants our life as followers of Jesus Christ who are called together as Church, to be easier than it is.  I long for having folks automatically flock to the Church, simply because the words and person of Jesus are so uplifting and life-affirming.  I want there to be eagerness to hear the life-giving, boundary-expanding words and ways of Jesus and to engage in his work of broad, liberating love.  Sometimes we do have such responses, and to that I say hallelujah! – but other times, when the Church lives up to its calling, the response from the locals, even from professed Christians, more closely resembles the actions of the unhappy throng who had heard enough out of Jesus.

Less than one week ago, last Monday, our neighbours south of the border had the Presidential Inauguration and Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on the same day.  To me, it seems like longer than a week, it’s been such a tumult since then.  Those who chose to focus on Martin Luther King day were reminded of the legacy of courageous Christian faithfulness of those who, with non-violence pushed hard against the powers of entrenched racism.  When we are Church at its best, we keep striving for the kind of world spoken by Dr King when he preached, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."  May that be our continued dream, for our denomination, for the US and for the sovereign nation of Canada and for all lands, and may we build on that dream to include the safety and support of all Trans people and all persons on the 2SLGBTQ+ rainbow.

Progressive Christian friends south of the border are having a very hard time right now, both because of the specific policy announcements being blurted out by the 47^th President, and because of the continued, all-too-familiar environment of divisive nastiness.  That powder keg was shown in the virulent response to Bishop Budde’s words. In a context where the more factual and reasonable something is, the more likely it is to be dismissed or attacked, it’s hard to know where to even start.  One set of starting points is suggested by Rev. Cameron Trimble, a United Church of Christ pastor and change agent in the US who works with other women to work for transformative change in Churches and charities, in business and in society as a whole. Her comprehensive program is entitled “Who do we choose to be in an age of collapse?” and is well beyond the range of a Sunday sermon, but I want to share its first section with you.  Following on the work of management consultant Meg Wheatley, Cameron asserts that, local resilience is the key to surviving widespread chaos. Put simply, “Whatever the problem, community is the answer,” and she suggests action steps for local congregations.  While stated within the American context, I hope that some of them will at least pique our curiosity.  They are:

·       “Create small support groups within your congregation to discuss fears, share hopes, and envision a resilient future. Consider hosting book discussions to foster resilience.

·       Encourage people to set up… “Islands of Sanity” [a term from Meg Wheatley to describe active, intentional groupings where ‘people work together to uphold principles of kindness, inclusion, and shared responsibility, creating a sense of sanctuary that nurtures well-being and hope’]

·       “Organize community dialogues to discuss shared concerns and identify mutual support strategies.

·       “Form mutual aid networks to provide community members with essentials and assistance.

·       “Start community gardens, offer workshops…and collaborate with local partners on resilience-building initiatives.

·       “Build alliances with local advocacy groups that provide services and protection for vulnerable populations, ensuring that they have immediate access to support within the community”.

Clearly, this is just the first step, but it indicates that even when things are so unsettled we are not just frozen in one spot, things can be done together, to provide safe and Christ-like community. Here, on the Osoyoos-Oliver United Church Pastoral charge, we are called to choose life-giving ways within our congregations to the benefit of the communities we serve, especially those whose lives are hard. Jesus also lived in challenging times, as he and all Jewish people lived in the constant shadow of their Roman overlords, and in those times he was not shy about speaking truth to power, and creating safe and inclusive community. Starting with a very eclectic group of disciples, he helped people to see God’s loving, redeeming power in their midst, and empowered them to live lives shaped by that holy love. Sometimes the response to what he was saying and doing was very positive; other times, well, not so much.

We live in uncertain times, when instability is one of the tools of Empire. May Christ’s example, and the ongoing indwelling of the Holy Spirit, inspire this community of faith and all communities of faith, and to speak boldly, may the Spirit fill us, our neighbours and neighbourhoods with a commitment to God’s sacred gifts of love, hope, equity and justice.  May we acknowledge the challenges of the day and in the face of those challenges choose the abundant life of Jesus Christ, our ever-present source of light and life. Amen.

References consulted and cited:

Associated Press. “MLK's "content of character" quote inspires debate”  https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mlks-content-of-character-quote-inspires-debate/

Lavietes, Matt and Prindiville, Tara. “Bishop at inaugural prayer service urges Trump to 'have mercy' on LGBTQ children, immigrants” https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/bishop-trump-inaugural-prayer-service-lgbtq-immigration-policie-rcna188590

Trimble, Cameron. “Who do we choose to be in an age of collapse?” https://convergenceus.org/report-age-of-collapse/

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

 

 

 

 

John 2: 1-11 - January 19, 2025 - Rev. Shannon Mang

a sermon preached by Rev Shannon Mang

We have left behind the Christmas season where we heard the stories of Jesus birth, and the arrival of the Wise Ones on Epiphany. Last Sunday we experienced the story of Jesus’ Baptism, and today, Jesus goes to a wedding.

The first chapter of the Gospel of John begins with a prologue that sets the stage for the story of Jesus. It is an ancient hymn about the Word/ God’s Logos…

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. …¹⁴ And the Word became flesh and lived among us

The rest of the first chapter establishes the role, and rank of John the Baptist as the one who prepared the way for Jesus, then Jesus was baptized by John and picked up his first four disciples. And then Jesus, God’s Word made flesh--- and his new disciples went to a wedding.

Jesus’ Mother, was present at the wedding too. She is not named in John’s Gospel- she is identified by her relationship with Jesus. She makes two appearances in this Gospel-- she is present here in this early story from Jesus’ ministry, and we next see her at the foot of the cross, just before Jesus’ death. It is curious to me that her presence in the Gospel of John brackets Jesus’s earthly ministry. She has a very important- and actually—a very funny role in this first story. Weddings in Jesus’ time were important community events that often lasted many days. The best food and wine were served first, while guest were hungry and thirsty. As people had enough food to eat and were becoming inebriated, the everyday food and drink were brought out.

The first action of the story is Jesus’ mother seeing that the host family is in trouble because they have run out of wine, and it is far too early in the party to recover from that social mis-step. This problem seems to only be known by the servants and Jesus’ mother. She hustles over to Jesus and tells him that there isn’t any wine… and it is implied that she expects her unusually gifted son to do something in response to her news. Jesus says… “Woman, what concern is that to me and to you? My hour has not yet come.”   Like mom—this isn’t our problem…. But Jesus’ mom does not let him off the hook, she turns around … and  His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”  I love just lingering in that moment of silence between mother and son where their eyes must have been locked in a war of wills… his mother knows that his hour had indeed arrived, and she was there to help him step into his hour…

So Jesus instructed the servants to fill 6 massive stone jars with water. The water jars that held 20-30 gallons of water were an essential part of a household in a time of no running water, and in a land where water was often scarce. The text says that the purpose of the water jars was for the Jewish rites of purification. When the jars were full, Jesus told one of the servants to take some of the water from one of the jars to the head steward of the wedding. The head steward of the party had no idea that the wine had run out, and instead of becoming aware of a big problem, he was shocked by the quality of the wine he had just been handed by a servant-- and that was about to be served to the guests. The steward went to the bridegroom and congratulated him saying “Everyone serves the good wine first and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.”

The steward, the bridegroom, and then the guests would have been thrilled at the generosity of the families throwing the wedding party. But the servants were in on the secret-- they knew that something amazing had happened. Jesus’ mother and the disciples of Jesus knew that Jesus had facilitated this wonderful generous joke. The amount of VERY good wine is extraordinary. A standard modern wine cask that many of us have seen on tours of our local estate wineries, holds about 60 gallons. This rural wedding party would have had the equivalent of 3 of our modern casks of wine. God clearly wanted the party to carry on and to let the hosts get the credit for such wonderful wine and such a great party!

There are no “miracles” in the Gospel of John- but there are 7 signs—today’s story of the Wedding at Cana is the first of these 7 signs. When the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, we are shown what God’s grace tastes like, looks like and feels like. We, the listeners or readers of the story are part of the secret knowledge that Jesus changed all that water into the very best wine. God’s love is expressed through abundance… in this story-- an abundance of wine. This story foreshadows the 4^th Sign in John- the feeding of the 5000. That story starts with just a little bit of food that then miraculously feeds everyone, with baskets of leftovers at the end.

The Gospel of John is just one of the places in our scripture story that tells of God’s amazing abundance… God wants everyone to enjoy a good party--- God wants everyone to have enough food… God wants every person to experience healing and wholeness. Living in the generosity and abundance of God is wonderful… and it is also frightening. The narrative of God’s abundance is radical, because God intends the goodness of life to be for all.  There were only a few at the wedding who knew where the abundance of wine had come from, but everyone had more than enough fine wine to drink. Jesus lived in a country that was under the occupation of Rome. Rome fully expected that the lands and peoples they ruled over would provide the few in power with great wealth. That works effectively only while whole populations are deprived of the well-being that comes with everyone having enough—enough food, enough homes, enough land to sustain a community. When whole communities experienced the Jesus movement, and started to experience God’s generosity.. and then expected to live in God’s generosity… those in Jerusalem who controlled the political and religious power saw the leader of that movement as a very serious threat. They had to stop Jesus who was spreading this message of God’s abundance and generosity being for everyone. So they killed Jesus… and look what happened when his death turned into the resurrection and entered the human story.

Our work is to continue to live out God’s story of abundance and generosity --- not just for us, but for everyone in the community. We have looked at the history of both the Osoyoos and Oliver United Churches and we can see how decades of living out God’s generosity has had an impact on these towns. We are now much smaller churches, but God’s generosity and abundance are still a part of the DNA of these church families. Jesus is still turning water into wine right here in our midst-- (week after week through the Thrift Store) …(as Oliver UC continues to practise generosity meeting the needs of our neighbours in town, and through our M&S giving). What are the new ways we being called to share our continuing legacy of God’s abundant generosity now—Where is Jesus continuing to turn water into wine among us? And how are we being invited to bring our neighbours to the party?

© 2025 Rev Shannon Mang, Osoyoos-Oliver United Church Pastoral Charge

Isaiah 43: 1-7 and Luke 3: 15-17, 21-22- January 12, 2025

I’m going to let you in on three little ministry ‘trade secrets’ related to the sacrament of baptism:

1.     First, one of the very best parts of being in Ministry is the experience of holding a child in your arms, having them snuggle right in, and baptizing them in the name of the triune God.  As I administer the age-old blessing and welcome a child into the household and family of faith, that holy, intensely personal experience at the font is incomparable.

2.     The second secret is related to the first:  nothing jolts a child into loud distress like three ice-cold dollops of water on the forehead, so an infant baptism goes quite a bit more smoothly if you warm the water a bit!

3.     The third secret is that adult baptisms are right up there with infant baptisms when it comes to a holy moment, because of the element of personal decision involved.   For an adult being baptized, something has led you to this decision: an aha! moment, a turnaround, a transition, or a desire to be more organically connected with a local community of faith.  Whatever it is, it is holy ground.

Here is what our United Church Song of Faith, written in 2006, has to say about baptism:

Before conscious thought or action on our part,
we are born into the brokenness of this world.
Before conscious thought or action on our part,
we are surrounded by God’s redeeming love.
Baptism by water in the name of the Holy Trinity is the means by which we are received, at any age, into the covenanted community of the church. It is the ritual that signifies our rebirth in faith and cleansing by the power of God.
Baptism signifies the nurturing, sustaining, and transforming power of God’s love    and our grateful response to that grace.

I appreciate the way that the Song of Faith starts its words on baptism by acknowledging the brokenness of this world…the presence of God’s love which can restore/redeem us to wholeness…and the way in which baptism answers our desire to be bathed in God’s love amidst the ongoing brokenness of life.  From the early days of Christianity, baptism has had a deep symbolic connection to the dying and rising of Jesus, and in these words of A Song of Faith I perceive our dying to the brokenness of what is, and our rising to a new outlook of hope – a washing away of hopelessness, if you will. The ways in which we relate to one another, person to person, nation to nation, religion to religion, do not at present have the fullness intended by God, so in the sacrament of baptism and in our awareness of God’s place in our lives, we invite the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit in a tangible way, and express a deep desire for God’s love and light to hold us and shape us and guide us toward wholeness.

So, on this “Baptism of our Lord Sunday” this all makes me wonder: what was Jesus’ self-understanding as he came to be baptized?  He was roughly 30 years old at the time, and it would be helpful to know a bit about his early life in order to ascertain his mindset… but the information we have is minimal. Following the Jewish faith traditions at the time of his birth, he was brought as an infant to the temple for the ritual circumcision (Lk. 2:21), and there is that wonderful story of Jesus, age 12, visiting Jerusalem with his parents and worrying them sick when for three days they could not find him: they thought he was lost, whereas he was merely deep in religious conversation with the teachers (Lk 2:46).  That’s all that the Bible tells us.  Oh, there are lots of stories from apocryphal writings that did not make the cut when the Bible was being formalized, such as stories of the child Jesus forming pigeons out of clay, clapping his hands and having them fly away, or a particularly nasty story of a boy knocking young Jesus to the ground and falling down dead.  For good reason, these stories didn’t make the cut.

What we can surmise is that Jesus grew up in Nazareth, in the high country above the Sea of Galilee.  His father, Joseph, was a Tekton, often translated carpenter but in reality “craftsman” or “builder” would be better words, as there was very little wood in the area to build things, but copious amounts of a black rock known as Basalt.  The gospel of Mark (6:3) indicates that Jesus might have followed his father into that line of work, though in the gospel of Matthew (13:55) he was referred to as “the carpenter’s son” so that’s a bit up in the air. Based on his knowledge of scripture and that little story of the adolescent Jesus in the Temple, I’ve always wondered if he was in training to be a Rabbi. 

So what was it that drew this young man to follow the crowds to the banks of the Jordan River, to be baptized by John?  Was he giving a visible endorsement of his cousin’s ministry? Did he feel a need to be ritually purified before taking up his ministry? Or was he simply guided by the spirit to do this, following that urging without knowing exactly why? 

We may be given some insight into the mind of Christ in our other scripture reading this morning, from the 43^rd chapter of Isaiah, a message from God conveyed by the prophet in a tumultuous time some 600 years before Jesus.  These words, and other similar writings in the prophets and Psalms, describe how God relates to those who turn to God in times of difficulty, uncertainty and transition:  

“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are mine.
“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you”. (Isa 43: 1-2)

On the cusp of his life-changing, world-changing ministry, reaffirming a connection to this God who does not abandon us in our trials was essential for Jesus, and the water baptism of John shaped that reaffirmation.  Jesus must have known that he was going to experience some really hard stuff, and indeed, he would regularly encounter people with horrible diseases, people whose lives were terribly diminished by enslavement or by hardships imposed by the Romans, and people without hope.  His message of a new Kin-dom of God would be fiercely opposed by the religious establishment and by some of his neighbours, who thought his new ways were arrogant and blasphemous.   Entering such a life, Jesus was going to need assurance that God loved him completely and unconditionally, and confidence that God’s supportive presence was not going to fade away when the going got rough.  Surrendering himself to the waters of baptism, re-enacting his commitment to the God of his ancestors, and being gifted by a heavenly vision immediately thereafter, set the stage for these hard things he was called to do.

Note that these words from Isaiah do not say “if” you pass through the waters and walk through fire, but “when.”  Being in relationship with God, being called by name by God and claimed as God’s own beloved, does not, sadly, make us immune to life’s difficulties.  That has been all too evident for many in this family of faith through the holiday season– it’s not “if” we go through heartbreak, but “when.”  And in the midst of those “when’s”, as the waters crest, as the heat is on, God is steadfast.  That does not guarantee that the pain or the chaos or the sense of endlessness will be lessened when you’re in the midst of hard things, but the holy and unshakeable presence of God and those who hold you in God’s loving care is something to lean into.   And perhaps it’s just me, but the sabre-rattling south of the border has caught my attention, giving me a whole new sense of affinity with Panamanians and Greenlanders, and in my unsettledness, I hear once again that God’s sturdy presence is not limited to our personal challenges.  Whatever worries or aggrieves us is within the scope of God’s strong support, whether that anxiety is amidst gunfire in Palestine or Ukraine, amidst the flames in Southern California, amidst our prayers that January 2025 in the Okanagan does not have a cold snap like last year’s did, or amidst our experiences of personal grief, loss, or worry.  

As we imagine Jesus coming to be baptized… as we think of all that it means to go under the water and come up again, the dying to old ways and rebirth to new ways, the release of hopelessness and the welcome of the Spirit…as we hear the words of the prophet promising God’s presence, come what may, and imagine what that means for our lives, for the life of this congregation, for the life of our towns, province and nation… we are invited to be people of renewed faith. While it is not printed in your bulletin, you will find on-screen the words of our United Church Creed, words which strike me as the best way to conclude this sermon.  So please join with me in the words of our United Church Creed.

We are not alone; we live in God’s world.

 We believe in God:
    who has created and is creating,
    who has come in Jesus, the Word made flesh,
       to reconcile and make new,
    who works in us and others by the Spirit.

We trust in God. 

We are called to be the Church:
    to celebrate God’s presence,
    to live with respect in Creation,
    to love and serve others,
    to seek justice and resist evil,
    to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen,
       our judge and our hope.

In life, in death, in life beyond death,
    God is with us. We are not alone.

    Thanks be to God.

 

References consulted/cited:

BBC News. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0khfym3

Christian Publishing House. https://christianpublishinghouse.co/2017/03/10/what-amazing-information-do-we-learn-about-jesus-in-the-temple-at-twelve-years-old-2/

https://udayton.edu/imri/mary/c/childhood-of-jesus.php

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/the-baptism-of-jesus/

Regan, Helen et al, CNN. https://www.cnn.com/weather/live-news/los-angeles-wildfires-palisades-eaton-california-01-09-25-hnk/index.html

United Church of Canada. “A Song of Faith.” https://united-church.ca/community-and-faith/welcome-united-church-canada/faith-statements/song-faith-2006

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