Genesis 1:1-2:4a
Psalm 8
2 Corinthians 13: 11-13
Matthew 28: 16-20

These three fellas were arguing over whose profession was first established on earth. “Mine was,” said the surgeon. “The Bible says that Eve was made by carving a rib out of Adam.”

“Not at all,” said the engineer. “An engineering job came before that. In six days the earth was created out of chaos. And that was an engineer’s job.”

“But,” said the politician. “Who do you think created the chaos?" Posted on the PRCL L preaching list.

On December 24, 1968 the first manned mission to the moon entered lunar orbit. I wonder what their thoughts were as they saw this spinning blue planet, round and perfect in the distance? I don’t know the answer to that question, , but what we do know is that when the astronauts sent their Christmas message to the world, on live television they read the first chapter of Genesis.

Few humans have been privileged to see, with their own eyes, this spinning blue planet we call home. We take so much of our lives here for granted; it is, after all, all that we have ever known.

Humans have long wondered about the world and where it came from. Many of the world’s cultures have, in their religious literature, attempted to speak of the origins of the world. Approximately 500 years before Jesus, the Priestly class of Israel, ministering to a people in Exile, put on paper the ages-old oral traditions of their faith, that Almighty God, their God, had created the earth. Immersed in a Babylonian culture, their religious leaders did not want them to lose their call as God’s chosen; the faith that it was the God of their own ancestors had created the earth. While the story of creation as found in Genesis was confined, to a certain extend by their limited understanding of astronomy and science, the primary purpose of the writers in telling the story was not to say “how” or “when” in relation to the creation, but to answer the questions: who is God? What is the world? And, “What is God’s relationship to the world?” Viewed in this way the truth of the story of creation has stood the test of time. The creation story is composed by a consummate poet, with the soul of a poet and faith in the God of his ancestors coursing through his veins. So our scriptures begin, not just at the beginning, but with the one who was and is the creator, the one who spoke everything into being.

It is the same faith that prompted the psalmist to take a look at the universe, as he or she could see it, and marvel that God cared for human beings. The psalmist had no rocket to take him to the moon at which he gazed, nor no space telescope to see more clearly the stars which twinkled back at him, but he was lost in ‘wonder love and praise’, not just at God’s power, but the audacious notion that the God who created all of this would bother with the likes of weak, fallible and sinful human beings.

There was no arrogance there. The idea that we had the right to destroy the earth, as if that was the actual meaning of ‘subdue’ came only when humans actually began to have the ability to start doing so! It was this God who called and demanded a faithful response, as if, as if the people were worth it. It was this God who pursued a faithless people, who extended the hand of welcome when they returned. It was this God who called prophets and priests to show the people the way of faith.

In the fullness of time it was this same God whose Spirit rested on one itinerant rabbi, formerly a carpenter from a backwater town called Nazareth. The daily practice of the people and some of its leaders had grown stale and needed some shaking up, some renewal. There was nothing new in that, in and of itself, the prophets had been called to do that for generations. This Man from Nazareth had a loyal following but there was nothing new in that either; the great Elijah had his ‘sons of the prophets’ who followed him around like he was their shepherd and they his sheep. There was nothing new, yet everything was new and different. It was as if, when they were in his presence, that they were connected to the one holy God, in a way that they had never known or experienced. When this man was killed, as tended to happen to prophets who rocked the boat his believers came to believe, so much so that they died for the belief, that this man had risen from the dead. He had risen they knew, not because they continued to see, hear and touch him, but because the Spirit of God had come upon the followers in a way that they could hardly explain and it was this Spirit which gave them strength and enabled them to understand what Jesus had been talking about when he was alive. Surely the great and holy God was at work in all of this. This much they knew. Yet they were, and remained in many ways, faithful Jews who had it bred into their souls that God was one. How could this one God be three? That was for the other nations. The God of Israel was one God. It was the core of their faith. Yet they knew that somehow the Holy had been revealed in this Jesus who came to be for them the Saviour and in the Spirit who accompanied them, as he had many in the past. As they searched, struggled and prayed they came to the theological understanding that we call the Trinity, some of which is reflected in the scriptures, much of which was developed by the early church as it grew and expanded.

In the cycle of the lectionary, the first Sunday after Pentecost is Trinity Sunday. It caps off the period of time that began with Advent and the expectations of a coming saviour and it begins the long period in which the church struggles with the implications of what this ‘Awaited One’ really means to our lives as Christians.

We refer to the Trinity as “One God, one substance” in ‘”three persons”. The language is often relational; Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God our Father and the father of Christ who is the Son of the Father and our Brother and the Spirit, active in the world and dwelling in each believer. We have one God, relating to the world and to us in three basic ways so the language of function also works: Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer.

In the human realm the reality of three ways of describing the same person is easy to understand. Many of you here could be described as the ‘child of 2 particular people’ but also as the ‘husband or wife of a particular person, and as well the parent of one or more particular children. We know that one person can be child, partner and parent. We also know this same person as employee, neighbour, sister or brother and the list can go on.

The naming of the triune God is critical to the unity of the worldwide church and this is named in the baptismal formula, found in the scripture reading for today and in our baptismal liturgy. I take the child in my arms, or have the adult kneel and I puur water on his or her head three times saying, “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” While we don’t tend to go out and try and convert the world anymore, the baptismal proclamation of the triune GOD is at the heart and soul of our identity as a church, and as various churches who profess the Christian faith.

The reality of God is and always has mystified even the most faithful and devout people of faith, no, I will change that to say that it is those folks who are most especially mystified and humbled. How DO you describe something that you can’t even begin to understand? You use metaphor and simile and realize at all times that you have only scratched the surface. You try to hold the Mystery that is God in one hand while trying to get your mind around it in the light of revelation and our experience; the somewhat feeble explanation we call “the Trinity”.

The reformer, Martin Luther once said, “To deny the Trinity is to risk our salvation; to try and explain it is to risk our sanity.” quoted at a local lectionary discussion group in Moncton NB

We gather to worship a God so powerful that the world was created out of chaos bu word and will. We gather to celebrate a God so caring for and so much in tune with his human creation that he came as one of them to show the way of true life. We gather to worship a God who is an near to us as our own breath, as mighty as the wind on the waves and as gentle as the flutter of a butterfly’s wings or the warm breath of a sleeping baby reminding us of love, and life and hope.

Amen.

Deuteronomy 30: 15-30
Romans 12: 1-13
Luke 4: 16-30

Hold Fast

On the 10th of June, 1925 a service of celebration, drawing a congregation of close to 9,000, was held in the Mutual Street Arena in Toronto and a new and rather unique denomination came into being. Before the documents which created this new denomination were signed, representatives of the three founding denominations proclaimed the qualities that their church was bringing to the union. From the Presbyterians came “the vigilance of Christ’s Kirk, the care for the spread of education and the devotion to sacred learning”; from the Methodists, “evangelical zeal and ministry of sacred song” and from the Congregationalists, “the liberty of prophesying and the love of spiritual freedom and enforcement of civic justice”.

By the time of Church Union there were already over 1,000 Union Churches, mostly in the sparsely populated West where working together had as much to do with necessity as it did an altruistic spirit of cooperation. At that service those already existing “union churches”, brought a wish for “unity in things essential and liberty in things secondary”. While it is true that Church Union divided families and communities it seemed to the majority that it was the way the Spirit was pushing the protestant churches of Canada.

The early 20's were a time of rapid change in Canada. There was much work to do for the Gospel of Christ and it seemed much better that they do it together and not in competition with one another. The “War to End All Wars” was finally over and the face of Canada was changing rapidly as cities were growing and immigrants were arriving daily. Behind the Union was the nagging feeling that the Protestant churches had not always taken seriously the words of John 17, “that they may be one so that the world may believe.”

Church Union was a daring and, to some, controversial move, and the church in the last 80 years has been no stranger to controversy. There are some who are uncomfortable with this face of the United Church but since its inception we have been a church which has dared to be a prophetic voice in the Canadian and world stage. Instead of confining itself to the strictly “spiritual or religious” it has allowed the power of the gospel to inform all of life and to speak with that voice. At the reception later today we will be showing a short video called “Dare to Be” and in it we are reminded of the daring stands taken by our church with regard to various issues and situations in our 80 year history.

When I was young we had to get used to a new hymn book. Compiled in anticipation of a union with the Anglican church which never materialized this book was the one everyone loved to hate because the tunes were difficult, the words were changed and too many of the hymns were regarded as ‘theirs’. Interestingly enough, those were exactly the same criticisms aimed at the “Old Blue Hymnary” when it was first published several years after Union. And when Voices United was publishe, it too received some of the same barbs. Yet the goal of the editors was always the same: to be true to the historic faith, to be faithful to the leading of the Holy Spirit in the present and to balance the needs of congregations large and small from one end of this land to the other.

This year’s Maritime Conference Meeting focussed on the changing face of the church and the call of God in this time of change and transition.

The passage read today from the book of Deuteronomy comes from a time of transition in the lives of the people of Israel. They had been wandering in the wilderness for so long that no one who had actually lived in Egypt and had experienced slavery was left alive, yet they were constantly pining for the good old days. We must always remember that those days were “ days of slavery!” Those ‘good old days’ were far from good!

Many people these days long for those same so called ‘good old days’, but, we must admit that they were not all that Great either! In some people’s list of the ‘good old days’ there were two world wars, the “great depression”, and a was limited availability of electricity and telephones, many men had to leave their families for long periods of time to find work, money for doctors non-existent, and the list goes ohn. In those “days” the people hoped and prayed for better ones.

As the people of Israel looked across the Jordan and wondered what the future would bring they had to realize that the venture of faith required risk. They had to realize, as we do, that every age has its ups and downs, its advantages and disadvantages and we all must seek God’s will for our lives in the midst of it all. The people of God are called to listen and go forward in faith, not to stay in the present or to retreat into the past.

So what is the ‘word from the Lord’ as they prepare to enter the land of Canaan, the land promised to their ancestors Abram and Sari so long before? They were to go forward holding fast to God and to God’s promises. They were not holding fast to the past but to the vision, to the future, to the promise and presence of Almighty God. They had been moving toward the land of promise for generations and God wasn’t about to reneg on the promise at that point. As the people lived in the land they would have to be reminded again and again to hold fast to the call and the promise because they often got sidetracked.

One of their biggest problems as I see it was that they forgot they were chosen for mission rather than blessing. They were chosen to BE a blessing, bot to be blessed for themselves alone. Their mission was a journey, not a destination. The United Church of Canada has always sought to be a force whereby the people were blessed, especially if the people were poor, or pushed to the margins or oppressed, or in need. For example, when the Japanese Canadians were interred in labour camps during the second world war the United Church was involved in both aid and advocacy.

Many years ago the United Church began to take a new look at the way mission work was done and we now work with partner churches overseas rather than imposing our culture and our ways on people in foreign lands. We have realized that our own native peoples are living a painful legacy of abuse and cultural destruction through our participation in the system of residential schools and we are making that painful journey in the realization that reconciliation will take a lot of hard work, confession, faith, trust and change.

Of course the most controversial of our policies and decisions have been around the issues of sexual orientation, and full participation in the life of community and church including ordination and same sex marriage. These matters continue to cause pain on both sides but we continue to work together as we attempt to be faithful to the gospel call.

As always though, we connect with the United Church on several levels, the most obvious of which is that of the congregation and pastoral charge; those with whom we carve the fatted calf, and spoon out the mashed potatoes and flip the pancakes and collect the bottles and swish the paintbrush, visit or take the Christmas box, share the hymn book and hold one another in prayer. The church is not: in the words of that lovely children’s hymn, a building, with or without a steeple, it is a people, it is God’s people, WE ARE God’s people.

We are God’s people. We are the United Church of Canada. We are called, as the people of Israel were called, to hold fast to God and the promises of God. We are called to hold fast to our faith as we try and be faithful in changing and frightening times. Whether they were good or not, the old days are not an option for us. We must go forward in faith. Let us resolve to work together despite our differences because we are committed to the wider mission of the church: the mission of Jesus, the Christ.

Amen.

Genesis 21: 8-21
Psalm 86: 1-10, 16-17
Romans 6: 6b-11
Matthew 10: 24-39

Almost buried at the beginning of the novel, “Anne of Green Gables” is a reference to a significant but little know aspect of Canada’s history: the “Home Children”, otherwise known as the “child emigration movement” Between 1869 and 1930 over 100,000 poor, orphaned and abandoned children were sent from the slums of England by churches and philanthropic organizations who hoped they would have a better chance for a healthy, moral life in rural Canada. http://www.genealogy.gc.ca/10/100809_e.html Unfortunately many were exploited by the families who took them in, primarily, to do farm and domestic work.

I wonder what it was like for those parents who had been trying in vain to look after their children as they succumbed to the very real pressure to send some of them away to a better life. How many sleepless nights were spent as they contemplated sending their children to an unknown land and an uncertain fate; never to see each other again. How many tears were shed as ties and caps were straightened, as hair was combed and as goodbye kisses were planted. We may find it completely reprehensible that the government, churches and other helping agencies saw this as a real solution to the problems of poverty but they did what they felt was necessary. We may find their treatment equally abhorrent, but all children were treated differently in that time. No doubt some acted in what they genuinely believed were the best interests of the children, while others, were, no doubt, just happy to be rid of one more social problem or in the case of those who adopted them, happy to have one more pair of hands to do the work they could not do on their own.

In today’s reading from the book of Genesis we encounter a passage that many of us wish wasn’t there at all! Many years before the events recorded in this passage, God promised Abram and Sarai, a nation, an innumerable line of people to be their descendants. The trouble was though, you may remember, Abram and Sarai were childless at the time this promise was made. To make a long story short, after Sarah could stand the waiting no longer she suggested to Abraham that he could father a child with someone else. That someone else was Hagar and that child was Ishmael. However, God made it quite clear to Abraham that the promise involved Sarah and God did keep his promise and eventually, Sarah did have a child of her own. They named this child “Isaac” which means laugher, because Sarah laughed when she first heard the news many years before.

Today’s passage begins at the time Isaac’s weaning, when he was about two years old. I am told that, in an age of very high infant mortality, it was about this time that the parents could finally hope that the child would live into adulthood.

Now that her’s son’s future was assured, Sarah became concerned that the ‘other child’ might become a usurper, taking his inheritance and his promise. So, as we have already heard, she practically forced Abraham to send them away. This action almost causes their deaths but through God’s guidance they found water and lived. In this story we find out that Ishmael is also a child of promise, the ancestor of another great nation. We find out that God has other, no less significant promises for this other child of Abraham.

Of course, one of the reasons this passage is in the biblical story is to explain the relationship between the two great peoples of Palestine; the two peoples descended from Abraham. At the beginning of their history as a people is this story of the major peoples of the Middle east going their separate ways, but nevertheless a story which emphasizes their relationship and connectedness; a story which emphasizes that God’s promises are also for ‘the others’.

As we read through the story of the people of Israel, the descendants of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Rachel and Leah, we are told time and time again that this people failed to realize that they were chosen, not to BE BLESSED, as much as they were to, BE A BLESSING to others. They were to be a light to the nations; they were to model true faithfulness to the God of heaven and earth. Yet, time and time again, they looked inward and sought to keep these blessings for themselves and to see themselves as above reproach. Their lives reflected the attitude that the Apostle Paul later condemned in the book of Acts, an attitude which assumed they could do anything they wanted because they were chosen. They forgot their call to righteousness, they forgot their call to embrace the travellers and the foreigners. Yet the good news of the story was that God did not give up on them, but continued to call them back to faithfulness.

As I look at this passage I see two main emphases: ONE, our connectedness with those who seem different is clear and emphatic. TWO: This passage speaks of the promises of God being for everyone, not just our group. This results in a call to justice for all of the earth’s peoples.

Many years ago, one of my older cousins was given the task of distributing a bag of candy at a family gathering. She took great delight in going from person to person and saying, as she doled out the treats, “one for you, and one for you, and one for you, ....” and so on. As she neared the bottom of the bag she realized much to her horror that if she continued, there would not be “one for her” when she finished.

In many ways we in the west have appointed ourselves as the ones who have the right to dole out the candy of the world’s resources. We assume that Canada’s resources are for us to decide who benefits from the promises of this vast land. We take what we want for ourselves first, save some for a rainy day and then dole out the rest to the world in need, or to those we feel deserve our charity. Unfortunately, Much of our ‘charity’ is limited by either a fear that the ‘goodies’ will run out, or by a feeling that we deserve what we have more than they do.

The desire to keep all the goodies for ourselves is not just limited to nations though. We even have those problems within our own country. In a recent issue of Maclean’s there was an article about Alberta’s new oil boom and how that may affect national unity. The disparities between “have” and “have not” parts of the country threaten to grow ever wider. As we look at the problems of poverty in Canada we know that the gulf between rich and poor is growing ever wider, no matter what part of the country we live in.

As we look around the world, one of the most pressing problems is the AIDS pandemic on the African continent. We need to act and we need to do it now and over the long term. It’s not just about ‘those poor miserable people over there somewhere’ it’s about human community and what God wants for all of humanity. God wished for Ishmael a life of blessing and God wishes that for all of humanity.

We need to realize that we are part of the fulfilment of that promise. God’s promises of blessing are not limited to us; why do we keep insisting that we deserve what we have and are entitled to keep it only for our own use. Our God calls us to a new way of looking at the promise of blessing, a way which does not exclude anyone.

One of the things that the people of God have been concerned with since the beginning is the care of the needy. In more recent years we have moved our focus from charity to true justice. No longer is it us ‘deciding’ to be generous because we are ‘nice’ or ‘Christian’ or for whatever reason, but because the God of life demands a more equal distribution of the world’s resources.

We are called to live out of our blessing, not just for ourselves, but for all of God’s peoples, even all of God’s beloved creation.

(In St Andrew’s this morning we will gather ) (We have also gathered here) to welcome a new member of our church family through the sacrament of baptism. In some ways the church has fallen into the same trap as the people of Israel and we can forget our call to be a blessing to others. We must always remember that our faith is not just to make us feel better, not just to ‘save us from our sin’ not just to benefit us, but so that we can go out from these four walls and be a blessing to the wider community. We as a congregation will make promises to the parents of this child, as we have many, many times in the past. We promise to provide an atmosphere where this child can learn about God’s love as revealed in Jesus of Nazareth. Part of the baptismal faith is participating in the mission and ministry of the church which is the work of God in Christ. We reach out to those in need, we seek justice and resist evil and, all of those other things spoken of so eloquently in the statement of faith, and we do so as the body of Christ in the world because we are blessed by God and changed by God’s love in Christ so that we can do nothing else!

As a baptized and baptizing church we have become a new creation, we have put on Christ, put our fear behind us and we seek to journey forward in love and justice as we seek God’s blessings for all of God’s peoples.

Amen.

Genesis 22: 1-14
Psalm 13
Romans 6: 12-23
Matthew 10: 40-42

The Parable of the Young Man and the Old

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned, both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake, and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets the trenches there,

And stretched forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

Wilfred Owen