Ezekiel 37: 1-14
Psalm 104
Acts 2: 1-21

Diversity is in our DNA!

There is a team in the great and glorious NHL, the National Hockey League, one of the original six, that has not won the coveted Stanley Cup since league expansion in 1967. I gather though that each and every home game is played to a full house (at least until COVID came along.) Why? Simply because it’s the Toronto Maple Leafs! Despite their continuing losses, I’m told that Leafs fans will continue to flock to games, no matter what and that is good for the team; because who else will pay those player salaries!!

We are, in general, a nation that lives and breathes hockey. Some people say it is in our DNA! Just about every small boy that puts on a uniform and picks up a stick dreams of wearing their own NHL jersey. Very few make it though! I looked it up and apparently only 35 kids from PEI have ever made it all the way to the NHL - only 4 are active. Saskatchewan lays claim to 25 current players!

I heard on the CBC program, the Current, on Wednesday morning, the hopes of one man, associated with the Toronto Raptors, who wants the heart of the Canadian sports fan to include some room for basketball. After all, the Raptors won the NBA championship in 2019 - the first time a non-American team has done so! The Toronto Blue Jays won the World Series pennant two years in a row in 1992 and 1993. My sister still has the commemorative Coke Cans!

All sports fans live in hope; in the hope that their team will WIN the championship - this year! The NHL Playoffs have started. As some of you know, my nephew plays for the New York Islanders and, of course, I want that team to WIN. Many Nova Scotians are rooting for the Penguins and their captain, “Sid the Kid” from Cole Harbour. They are currently playing against each other at this stage of the playoffs! The Saskatchewan Rough Riders have a big fan base in most of this province. Many others are glued to the TV for various curling tournaments. ( I would not dare to leave those out would I? They’re in your DNA!)

Professional sports teams are an interesting conglomeration of nationalities and despite the team name, the players can come from almost anywhere! Their team adds another level of identity to their lives and while they are in that uniform, it is their most important. In any game they may be facing a rival player who used to be on the same team at some point during their career. Given what is at stake and the emotions involved, I’m not sure how they switch their loyalties, but they must do so!

Our Acts passage for today tells a pivotal story from the early church. There are really two groups in this story - ONE is the disciples and other followers of Jesus and TWO is the crowd gathered for the festival of Pentecost. We need to keep in mind that Pentecost was an already established harvest festival, held seven weeks after Passover. It celebrated the “first fruits of their harvest”. Tender carrots. New Potatoes. Asparagus. Kiwi. Lemons. Kumquats. Ummmmm!

We are told that large crowds had gathered for this celebration. If you noticed the text tells us that the people were Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Mesopotamians, Judeans and Cappadocians, Asians, Egyptians, some Lybians, Romans and a number of others. I usually tell those who are reading that passage to paraphrase the part about the different ethnic groups by saying there were people there from all over the world. It’s probably easier to do the same in Gaelic!!!! Thank you Celia for the reading. I think that the land of the Gaels was well beyond the edges of the world as Luke would have known it!

This festival becomes the backdrop for a renewed and powerful experience of the Holy Spirit on the part of the disciples. We must be clear here: Pentecost DOES NOT celebrate the birth of the Holy Spirit. Christians DO NOT have an exclusive corner on the Holy Spirit. Neither is the work of the Spirit limited to the Jewish and Christian faiths!

This festival becomes an early opportunity for evangelism! The disciples experience of the Spirit on this day seems to have been a completely transforming one, and totally essential to the survival and growth of the very early church. Since the crucifixion they had been bewildered and fearful. Spending time with the resurrected Jesus had been wonderful but now that he was gone, all they had was promises about some kind of continuing presence and they must have confused and bewildered. What exactly was he talking about? The experience of the Spirit on this day was one that would fundamentally alter the DNA of those who placed their trust in the God Jesus called Father.

The play-by-play of the event is shrouded in excitement and mystery and seems almost magical. The Spirit had a touchdown!! When I was a child we had a set of Bible story books that depicted each of the disciples as having their own little tea light growing out of their head. Maybe that was how it felt!

Then as we go on to the preaching that happened that day it is unclear if the people SPOKE in other languages, or if each member of the crowd HEARD them in other languages. What did happen? Does it matter? I’m convinced that the miracle was primarily in the understanding. Foreigners heard and understood the good news. The Spirit was moving in many directions, all at the same time.

Years ago I read a devotion in which the writer described attending a church service somewhere in Europe, I believe. He did not understand a word the presiding minister said, until the communion elements were lifted up and he knew that the words were “this is my body” and “this is my blood.” He also knew he was at home, worshipping with fellow Christians! I believe this is from Jim Taylor but I may no longer have the book!

This is Asian History month. It is a time for Canadians to celebrate the contributions to the cultural mosaic that is Canada of people that identify as Asian. It is also a time to acknowledge that Canada has not always treated our Asian citizens very well, in fact, at some times they were treated abysmally. A number of years ago our General Council made a commitment to become a truly inter-cultural church. Of course this involves heritages other than “Asian”. Sitting here in rural Saskatchewan, our congregations may be composed of people with similar looks and like ethnic origins, we need to open our hearts, intentionally, to other groups within our country and denomination and embrace the contributions of others. It is not a new idea or new struggle. We can see in our passages for today the Spirit giving understanding of the Good News of Jesus to people from all over the known world. The message seems clear: there were to be no barriers because the Spirit was one bringing spiritual insight and understanding to diverse people. Their spiritual DNA was changed.

Of course the people of God had experience of being able to count on the Spirit to bring life and understanding to a people who felt fear; dried out; and desolate. In their distant history they had been exiles, or refugees, and that experience shook them to the core of their faith.

Just as Ezekiel’s vision saw dried out bones clothed in flesh and come to life, so too the people Were given the hope of a return to their land and a new and life-giving experience of the Spirit.

Within the last few generations there have been a number of attempts by various governments to rid itself of certain groups of people. I hear the word, “genocide” and I think of Rwanda, of Cambodia, of the Holocaust, of the colonial treatment of North and South American indigenous peoples by European powers seeking to further their own interests.. They are evidenced by piles of bones, mass graves, destroyed villages, laws which prohibit immigration from certain countries, forced migration and the creation of stateless people and systemic racism. In this Asian History month we are called to recognize and celebrate the Asian cultures which have added to and changed our “white western European demographic.” Most of us know something about our ancestors and why they came to Canada, from Western Europe or the Ukraine, or why they left the Maritimes or Central Canada to come “out west” but most of us know little about the culture and history of the various Asian peoples who are now becoming a part of the fabric of this nation.

I was reading a sermon by a Korean born United Church minister last week and he talked about the mis-trust between Japanese and Korean peoples stemming the treatment of Korean women by Japanese soldiers. Those who are still alive struggle for their pain to be acknowledged and apologies to be made. We know that our country deprived Japanese people in the west of their land and their freedom during WW2 and we have had to deal with this. We also have to deal with the reality that many Chinese men came to work on the building of “Canada’s National Dream” but were treated abysmally when it came to immigration.

While we may dismiss all of these things and say, “well that is life” or “that happens in war” or “let them get over it” or “that was long ago,” that is often the solution of the victor and the powerful for dealing a past that should not be buried and forgotten. New immigrants can tell us better than we know ourselves about our treatment of First Nations peoples. As a church and country which welcomes all cultures we need to realize that past relationships need to be acknowledged and forgiveness asked and granted before we can go forward. As church people we are called to a broad unity through the work of the work of the Spirit in our lives.

The sermon I was talking about minutes ago talked about the concept in the Korean culture, called “Han.” Han can be described as frozen and knotted feelings of despair, helplessness, fear, anger, and other negative feelings. Such feelings are often shared by a whole group of people. It is the work of the Spirit to help lessen and overcome these feelings. Each of us are often very limited in our knowledge and experience of other cultures and their interactions with other cultures.

Ancestry.ca offers a DNA service which will tell you what countries your ancestors came from. Perhaps some people have discovered heritages they knew nothing about. I suspect such results can be as eye opening as the prompting of the Spirit to open our hearts to all others. Maybe our DNA cannot be changed but our attitudes can.

The work of the Spirit in this case is not to be some great melting pot where we all profess a kind of bland Christianity that is, more or less, the same. The work of the Spirit is not to turn everybody into the same kind of Christians we are. The work of the Spirit is to embrace diversity while promoting understanding and unity.

The work of the Spirit is to speak the languages of love and life and to live them out. People will hear with understanding and dried out and lifeless bones will not only have flesh but true life.

It is my prayer folks that Pentecost is now!

Amen.

2 Corinthians 4:3-5:1
Psalm
Mark 3: 20-35

Treasure in Earthen Vessels

I love pottery, earthen vessels. I find the work of a potter fascinating! A skilled potter can take a lump of clay and fashion it into a cup, a bowl or a mug, seemingly without effort. It is fired and glazed and becomes a thing of beauty. Don't drop it though. It will likely break -it's not like Corel!

I have a sampling of my pottery pieces here. Each of these mean something to me and remind me of an event or person. The original chalice for this communion set fell on the floor and like Humpty Dumpty, could not be glued back together. This pottery communion cup was a gift to the commissioners and guests of the General Council meeting in Kelowna BC. It connected to the theme of the meeting. It is not turned on a wheel like the others but put together from pieces that must have looked like a bit like a jigsaw puzzle. I guess that was the only way to make hundreds of pieces. One day it fell on the floor and broke but I WAS able to piece it together - more or less! It lives in my China cabinet and I keep it as a memento. These pieces are all valuable to me, not because of what they cost but because of the story behind them and the memories they evoke.

More than a year of COVID has taught us many things, one of which is that life is fragile. Human beings, at least until a certain age, tend to think of themselves as ageless. My university classmate and friend Patti and I both agree that we feel the same age as we did in university and it’s just other folks who have aged! We go back to the campus and wonder why the students look so young. We go to a reunion and we wonder there all that gray hair on our friends came from. They look so old! Of course, we have not changed!

Often it is a sudden or unexpected illness of one's self or a close friend that sets us back and gives us pause. The death of several friends my age when I was in my 20s was the first of many of these "realizations". As time goes on and friends die, I am reminded of life's fragility in a way that I could not have appreciated as a younger adult. So in the midst of our vulnerability what do we do?

The letter to the Corinthians was written in a time when joining the group of Christ-followers was a guarantee of a difficult life of persecution and fear for their lives. Yet, this did not seem to stop people from joining their group - in droves! In the midst of this uncertainty they found a message of God's strength in the midst of their own weakness and vulnerability. They discovered the paradox that in losing their life, they would find it. They discovered that they could not go through life on their own and that they did not need to try.

We say it takes a village to raise a child. Many families rely on relative and good friends to help get their children to and from various activities or simply for child care. Covid has made this more of a challenge.

We have had to work harder to make this church a true community. Phone calls and cards have replaced in-person visits as many people are staying home, even from church, until they feel being out in public is safer. Our technology has given us headaches and sleepless nights but also notes of appreciation and we are thankful that this pandemic is happening in a time when we can worship "remotely".

We human beings don't like to admit our vulnerability. From the moment we are born we strive to grow and seek strength and independence; a necessary part of growing up. How to get that spoon of food into the mouth. Oops, try again, that one went on the floor! Now, it would be far easier if mom or dad helped, and there would be less cleanup but I'm not sure if it is better for the child. Of course children must be prevented from doing dangerous things - such as crossing the street alone, or climbing ladders attached to grain tanks and farm equipment.

Throughout this pandemic there has been a small, but vocal, group of people who have rebelled against the guidance of the Saskatchewan Health Authority and mask wearing seems to be the “thing” they rail against the most.

The SHA, comprised mostly of medically trained people, knows that humans are vulnerable. As doctors and nurses they have all seen their fair share of broken arms, serious injuries and illnesses, and have tried to glue the clay jars of their patients bodies back together using casts and surgery and medications and education and physiotherapy.

We often think of rights as separate from responsibilities but they are two sides of the same coin. I can do many things but I have no right to do so if it puts you in danger. If I am sick I am supposed to stay home even if it is no great effort for me to come to church. If I am suffering from something that is not contagious, that’s one thing, but if it would be COVID, that’s quite another. I spent two weeks, mostly in my house, just in case my health issue might possibly be COVID. It was no fun but the SHA feels it is a necessary inconvenience. We do it, not to protect ourselves, but for others.

In the midst of social isolation it is all too easy to become self-centered and think only of our inconvenience or having to ask for help or admitting that we need help, even if it is only the delivery of a jug of milk. We listen to the nightly news and feel perhaps that “misery loves company” or “thank God we don’t have it as bad as the people in this or that other place”.

Sometimes though, the nightly news is very different. Sometimes, it has NOTHING to do with COVID. Just last week we all heard the shocking news that unmarked graves for 215 children were found on the grounds of a former residential school in BC. 215 CHILDREN. TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN CHILDREN. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg, we are told. Potentially, many of the 130 or so other schools could have such a cemetery; estimates of student deaths in Canada’s Residential Schools are as high as 6,000.

Some say we should not have been surprised as survivors and their families have been telling us for years of children who simply disappeared. Many former students have recounted their stories of the abuses and conditions they were forced to endure. Did we think they made it all up?

Many staff in these schools sought to take advantage of these children's vulnerability - to beat the Indian out of them - often literally and to make them hate themselves and their indigenous heritage. That was the goal. Even when you account for the times when corporal punishment in education was much more acceptable, some of these teachers were exceptionally callous and cruel and seemed able to bully their much gentler colleagues into compliance or, at least, silence.

How do we go forward, from here? Will we mourn for a week or two and then clean up the wet teddy bears and shoes and move on as if nothing has happened, as if we “did that and it’s done with? That was “so last month. Let’s get on with life!”

One of the problems of white European culture is our belief in our strength. When we know something is broken, we fix it or we try. That’s what adults do. We also like to tackle unpleasant things and get them over with. But perhaps this time we need to pause, to sit and look at those teddy bears, look at our own children playing on the swings and say to ourselves, over and over again, the words, “those schools killed children or allowed them to die.” Canada killed children or allowed them to die! Children died. CHILDREN DIED, and no one cared, no one told their families, and they just disappeared, never to be spoken of again by the schools.

In wartime, our government had checks in place to ensure children did not enlist. Some lied about their age and did, but our country says that we don’t deliberately put children in harm’s way.

Except for these children! We waged war on these First Nations through their children. We have teddy bears, and shoes, and other symbols and they remind us of the fragility of children. They remind us of the treasure we see in our children.

I saw a picture on Facebook the other day of a couple with a new great-grandchild - probably just a few days old. Loved. Precious. Facebook and family albums have thousands of such pictures. Others are of big sister or brother with the new baby. Precious pictures - precious children.

Now think of a police officer coming to YOUR home and taking away all your children over the age of three. They eventually came back but when they do they know nothing of family life and no longer speak your language. They are lost souls who eventually had children of their own who were also taken to residential schools and the problems and deficits compounded and multiplied.

Say this after me - they were OUR CHILDREN - they were OUR CHILDREN They were sons and daughters of this land. They were children.

I suspect that the woman in the picture I just mentioned taught her daughter about motherhood, as her mother had taught her and as she in turn taught her own daughter and so on! This family knows how to raise their children in love.

All of that was messed up and short-circuited by the residential school system. Teenagers left there not knowing anything about a normal family life, not knowing anything but violence, abuse and self-loathing.

They were taken into a system run by white people who thought they had all the answers. They forgot the treasure in earthen vessels in their care, they forgot that they themselves were precious and vulnerable and fragile. I believe they forgot their common, fragile, humanity - their creatureliness.

What if we started over? Truly apologized and then tried to build a country where all cultures were respected. We white folks are pretty smart have contributed a great deal to so-called “progress” but we’ve certainly done a lot of stupid stuff, like polluted rivers and the air and killed off entire species of animals and caused global warming mostly because of our insatiable desire for MORE.

In years gone by we thought the first nations were beneath us and needed to be educated and modernized and civilized - we wanted them to live in permanent houses and leave the land to us - for agriculture and forestry and mining. Simply put, they were in the way of our goals and ambitions.

Part of true healing involves sitting with the pain and admitting that we don’t actually know everything and we don’t know what is best for everyone. Just as we need to rely on God’s strength, we need to sit, to listen instead of speaking and to hear the wisdom we refused to acknowledge for so long.

Sometimes healing can come from a medicine, sometimes it takes a lot more time. So for now, let us sit and look at the bears and the shoes and allow wisdom to speak to us.

Amen.

It Grew!

I suppose a botanist could explain it, but it’s a total mystery to me. A mighty oak tree can grow from one small acorn and live for hundreds of years. Conifers have very small seeds and can also grow into enormous trees and live for hundreds of years. The seeds of some conifers need a forest fire in order to start the germination process. I guess it’s sort of a built in forest management fail-safe; only so many healthy trees can grow in one acre! Trees provide shade and when cut, firewood and building materials and, of course, are considered the “lungs of the planet”.

Berwick Camp, one of my favourite places, is carved out of a hemlock woods and some of the trees that give us shade began to grow before Columbus supposedly discovered America. (I hope they are not teaching that, anymore).

Kids often experiment with bean seeds and a paper cup full of soil - to be able to observe, as much as possible, the germination and early growth of a bean plant. It’s kind a fun to see the bean’s shell expelled from the ground as the seed germinates! As a kid I learned that digging the sprouting bean up every day was not a good thing!!!! It usually ended badly! We have planned some gardening related activities for our VBS for later this summer! Wait for them!

When it comes to gardens, the size of the seed and the resulting plant don’t often have any direct correlation. Gardeners just know which seeds are supposed to be small and which are just bigger. Many years ago I planted my first garden. Just like my mother, I had a little map. After a while I became disgusted with the quality of the lettuce I had planted so I decided to pull it all out! Turns out that my map was upside down and what I thought was lettuce was actually radish! It finally made sense why the lettuce was so coarse! Gardners know that you can’t plant tomatoes and expect to harvest carrots. Flower gardens provide beauty and vegetable gardens feed a family or many people if the garden is acres and acres.

Today’s passage from the Gospel of Mark speaks of mustard seeds. When I think of a mustard seed, I think of the mustard plants that I would sometimes have to pull from my father’s fields - he did not want mustard growing in with the oats. Unless there was a variety of “monster mustard” in Jesus’ day, I think Jesus was exaggerating when he spoke of the size of the plants- mustard is not THAT big. I know that some people grow mustard on purpose but if you don’t want it “there,” whatever it is, it’s a weed!

When I lived in the Maritimes, the maple seedlings growing under the deck or in the flowerbed had to be pulled out before they grew too big to pull. There and on the lawn they were certainly WEEDS. On the other hand, a maple properly situated and cared for can grow into a stately tree. I hope the people who bought my house were able to keep my maple tree growing and healthy. A bunch of the right kind of maples can become “a sugar bush” and provide great sweetness and an income.

One morning in the late 1920s my grandmother got our of bed and looked out the window of their farmhouse. My grandfather who had probably lain awake all night listening to the wind, asked, “what do you see.” She answered, “it’s green as far as the eye can see”. By suppertime, though, the landscape was completely black. The crisis that year was not a failure of germination but a failure of the land being able to hold the root systems to enable the growth.

The parables in today’s passage from Mark are filled with what you might call, “natural mystery”. The mystery is not of the same caliber as the true identity of Jack the Ripper who terrorized the Whitechapel District of London England in the late 1800s or what really happened to Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 which fell out of the sky 7 years ago, but mystery, none the less.

The passage from Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth speaks of the mystery of becoming a new creation.

Pause

This has been a hard couple of news weeks for Canadians; the two top stories on the news centre on hatred and violence - the first toward hundreds, perhaps even thousands of First Nations children and families and the second - toward one family whose only crime was to be Muslim. Both were perpetrated by a person, or persons, who professed the Christian faith.

The death of the Muslim family in London seems to have awakened many Canadians from sleep and spurred us to say, “that’s not our Canada” and “how can we prevent this kind of thing from happening again.”

In our church, at least, we are struggling with the stories that have been told about residential schools. We wonder how we could have been so cruel to children!

The Black Lives Matter movement in the United States and in Canada is a response to both hard and anecdotal evidence that white lives seem to matter more. Lately, the rise in hate crimes against Asians has been fanned by misinformation that “they” are responsible for COIVID. A US president, whose name shall not be said aloud, frequently misspoke in this regard and may be largely responsible for people who have taken the next step in their attitudes, allowing them to physically attack and verbally malign people who are Asian. Yet, our own country has not had a stellar record when it comes to welcoming new-comers of many ethnic backgrounds.

While we have laws in this country to make punishment more harsh if the crime is a hate crime we still have a long way to go in terms of the seeds of what is often called “white privilege”.

I stand to be corrected but there are 3 things farmers do to ensure a good crop - one is soil preparation, two is good seed, and three, fertilizing and weed control. In some places irrigation would be an essential 4th step but I am not sure how you could irrigate the amount of land people plant here in Saskatchewan.

In the light of recent news and using the lens of today’s passages I ask: How does hate grow? Does it grow in secret like a seed before the first tiny shoot pierces the ground, or does it grow in public like a building is constructed - with a foundation, a frame, sheathing and then interior finishing - and has a government issued permit!

We’ve all heard the expression, “keeping up with the Jonses!” The Jones family get a new car, we need a new car! They get new patio furniture and ours begins to look pretty shabby, pretty fast! They go on a trip and so must we! You know where that leads us - maxed out credit cards and no greater sense of personal fulfilment than we had before!

An elderly indigenous man was teaching his grandson about life. He said, "A fight is going on inside me," he told the young boy, "a fight between two wolves.

The dark wolf is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, resentment, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego."

He continued, "The Light wolf is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you grandson…and inside of every other person on the face of this earth.”

The grandson ponders this for a moment and then asked, "Grandfather, which wolf will win?"

The elderly man smiled and simply said, "The one you feed".

Sometimes we don’t think too much about what we, as grownups, say around children but children are like little sponges, listening and observing at all times. A mom I know would get after her husband for swearing, when he was with his children, because she knew that she was unlikely to change him but, perhaps, she could have a hand in preventing their son from picking up this habit!

As a people of faith we need to prepare good soil and plant good seeds in those who follow. We need to weed out the things which might sound good, at first, but which lead to harm and destruction. We need to remember that all potatoes do not need to be Russet or Cobbler, not all apples need to be MacIntosh or Gala and not all corn is meant to be peaches and cream.

Perhaps we need to be like those who talk to their African Violets and begonias!

We have been struggling with the can of memories opened up by the discovery of the 215 bodies in the unmarked graves in Kamloops and the death of the family in London. We are called, not to action at first - but to listening. When we have harvested our crop, we wait for the snow to fly and then for the robins to return before we seed again.

In the long cold nights in-between seasons we think and plan and ponder what it means to grow canola, or barley or to be in true community with all the peoples of this land. In the meantime we may have come to a conclusion to change something, to do something different - to be in a different way.

It seems clear that what we are doing now is not working - it seems clear that the sins of our past have become sins of our present. It seems clear that the soil of our country has to be prepared in a different way and cared for in a different way. If we want to be a new creation, as is written of in the letter in the church to Corinth we need to be prepared to change - to do things in a different way- and to trust in the God whose farm is all creation and who loves all of Creation.

Behold! I make all things new says God. Let us live into this promise.

Amen.

2 Corinthians 5: 1-13
Psalm 9
Mark 4: 35-41

The Storms of Life

Anyone who lived in Prince Edward Island before the opening of the Confederation Bridge in 1997 was very familiar with what we often simply called, “the ferry,” whether it be the one that went to Nova Scotia or the one which went to New Brunswick. Depending on the year, not just one boat sailed each crossing but there was a total of five or six different vessels that sailed in any one season. Many Islanders will have stories of hours long crossings battling heavy ice, wind, waves - often these were the crossings with many sea-sick passengers. I recall one such crossing where you looked out the port windows and saw only sea and out the starboard side and saw only sky! Then it changed! Of course there is the frustrating disappointment of nearing the dock only to hear the ship’s horn sound in the distance and see it leaving - knowing that it was not full and you could have been on it - if only you had left 5 minutes earlier, or had not gotten caught behind that slow load of hay or gotten that speeding ticket or, or, or.

I’m not a sailor or a boater but those of you who are, know there are things you need to know to stay safe on the water - even on a relatively small lake. Sailors have their adages, such as “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight, red sky in the morning, sailor take warning.” When I was in high school I studied a ballad called “the tale of Sir Patrick Spens” in which a seasoned sailor is forced to put to sea because the king wanted it. Even though another seasoned sailor had expressed the wisdom of sailing because he had seen the “new moon had the old one in her arm” the ship put to sea and was lost with all hands.

Then there is the “spoof” poem - by William Henry Drummond who writes of a shipwreck on a small Quebec lake. The likelihood of such a shipwreck on that body of water is slim to none, apparently. His advice to people who don’t want to drown at sea is, “to live on a farm and to stay on shore!”

That may be good advice for some people but it is no way for a sailor to live. A sailor who does not put out to sea is not a sailor.

This story of Jesus’ ministry caps off many chapters of teaching and healing. Then, as today’s chapter begins, he leaves to go somewhere else. Of course this story is not told just to end off a series of parables and teachings with a simple change of venue. In giving us his travel itinerary; the author of Mark’s gospel has a wider purpose. There are clues we would all be excused for missing. The sea of Galilee was known for its sudden, fierce storms which could come out of nowhere and disappear just as quickly.

We also need to know that Jesus is going from Jewish territory to Gentile territory. Perhaps this would be akin to crossing between two un-friendly countries or crossing a controlled provincial border during COVID.

We have been in various stages of COVID precautions for well over a year. The former Nova Scotia Premier Stephen MacNeill made himself famous with his blunt advice, “Stay the blazes home.” We have ridden the waves of restrictions from “almost normal” to “stay at home and don’t go out unless its absolutely necessary to go out”.

For some people though, home isn’t even safe. We have all heard about outbreaks in long term care in some provinces. I saw a news item on the tv on Tuesday night about outbreaks in a First Nations Community where housing is at a premium. With dozens of people live in one house, it is impossible to have any space to one’s self and the transmission of the virus very easy.

But let’s try and forget about COVID for a moment. As Christians we are called to realize that our mission involves going beyond our comfort zone. It involves stepping into the unfamiliar, maybe even dealing with those we would call enemies or at least those with whom we might disagree. Our Matthew 25 program here in Nipawin is an excellent example. We want to reach out to people who are lonely and need to talk to someone else over a meal, and we intend it to be for people who NEED a meal because their income is not sufficient to cover their needs.

This program has been impossible during COVID but we will get back to it. With programs such as this we need to constantly assess if it is serving the needs we intended it to, AND if there are ways we could expand its reach.

When it comes to our Relief Fund we wrestle with difficult questions. Why are people in need? Is what we are doing the best solution? How do we allow people to maintain some dignity as they come “cap in hand” to ask for a handout.

In its now 97 year history, the United Church seems to have been on the forefront of social change for generations. We have checked off many “firsts” as we were one of the first to ordain women, and openly gay ministers. We have always welcomed diverse interpretations of scripture and welcomed all people, despite what “others may say”. Lately we have championed the Black Lives Matter movement and many march in Gay Pride Parades and have gone on record as supporting a ban on conversion therapy. Many of our churches have become affirming as we bring down more and more barriers about who can and cannot be considered Christian. We even welcome those who disagree with us.

Of course we have have alienated some more conservative followers of Jesus and some church buildings, even in this province, have been targeted with grafitti or other property damage because we are sailing to destinations others don’t think are right or appropriate.

We will never solve the dilemmas that come about when Christians differ - let alone the secular folks who don’t like our views. But, as a people of faith, I think United Church folks believe that their mission is God’s work and that Christ is in the boat with us.

We follow a Christ who walked on wounded feet, who touched untouchables and associated with those seen as outcastes and sinners. We sail with a teacher who went to places he wasn’t supposed to go and had a message of love and acceptance.

As someone once said, “God’s love isn’t a zero sum game”. Some people feel that there is only so much love to go around and we don’t want to waste it on undeserving people - but who says “they” (whomever they are) are less deserving than we are! We all live by grace and are called to proclaim God’s unconditional welcome. We all have experienced this love and grace and our lives and relationships can show something of what it means to live by grace and love.

The one thing we are not called to do is to play it safe. If we don’t take some risks we would never do anything at all.

So let us weigh anchor, set sail and head into the wind sure that Jesus goes with us. What else could we ask.

Amen.

2 Corinthians 8: 7-15
Psalm 130
Mark 5: 21-43

Ministry in the Interruptions

It rarely happens on a “slow day”. Of course, it never happens when I would have lots of time to attend to the request. It usually takes place when I am up to my eyeballs in work and feel stressed; someone phones or texts me or comes to the church looking for something important. “Im out of food”. “I need this”. “I need to talk about the board meeting”. Or I receive a call from the funeral home.

I asked one woman looking for a meal if she could wait till tomorrow because I had a really full schedule and she said, “Well, I’m hungry today”.

It was a number of years ago; I was ready to relax for the evening. I had worked all day and had just arrived home after doing some visiting at the tail end of a snow storm. Thankfully, I had kept my power and the neighbour with the snow-blower had just cleared my driveway. I was home safe and sound, my car was off the road, and I could now relax! I went to the freezer and picked out a piece of chicken. I had my plan: have a leisurely supper, watch some tv and read for the rest of the evening. I felt I needed and deserved it! The phone rang. It was the nursing home on the phone, specifically, a nurse from my congregation who worked there. After trying all the Catholic priests in the area, who were either not home or snowed in, she called me. Could I come? I mentioned my chicken and asked about supper and she suggested that I come RIGHT AWAY. I put the chicken to thaw away from the cat’s reach and left for the nursing home.

I received a similar call this past weekend. The only thing missing last week were the snow-banks! The nursing home was twice drive! I was probably equally tired - and felt I needed a rest. Up until then I had not been in a nursing home for 15 months or so! I went though and my rest came later.

We know that the important things in life do not always conform to our convenience; the life of faith does not always conform to our schedule. The late Henri Nouwen, a Catholic Priest and university professor who spent his later years working in a L’Arche community in Toronto wrote, “My whole life I have been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted until I discovered that my interruptions were my work.” from a colleague’s weekly blog.

I’ve heard stories of women in labour who almost did not make it to the hospital because the baby’s father had “a few things to do first.” A friend kept putting off the installation of the baby’s “car seat” and was finally forced to do it on the day they discharged his wife and baby daughter! Of course, they would not let them go home without the seat. Daddy was in the pickup zone at the hospital trying to decipher the instruction book on the installation of the car seat and momma and baby were sitting impatiently in the lobby. (Actually baby was sleeping, it was momma who was impatient! ) Or maybe the chair was too hard!

Babies set their own schedule and wait for no one; or hury for no one! That goes for feeding and diapering and crying as well as being born.

Pause

Many of the Gospel stories are set in the action packed context of Jesus’ travels. If the gospels are any indication, Jesus did not sit idle long, but was always on the move.

Jesus, in today’s passage, seems to have planned to teach all day, and the crowds had followed him, but then he becomes too busy for that! A request for healing comes to him and he responds right away. While he is on the way to that person’s home, another request comes and he responds immediately.

You may notice that today’s requests come from people at opposite ends of the social hierarchy. One is a synagogue leader asking for the healing of his daughter and the other is a woman whose illness would have made her ritually unclean - an outcast. She was not even supposed to be out in public, certainly not anywhere that she could be touched, even accidentally, by a man.

Jairus was an important man and would have been accustomed to commanding, not begging for a favour. No doubt he followed all of the rules. His life checked all the “right boxes”. Yet, it seems that he recognizes Jesus’ authority and takes upon himself a secondary status. In going to Jesus in broad daylight and in public, he risked the ire, or at least, the displeasure of his colleagues, men of status and importance who generally looked down upon that “preacher from Nazareth”.

The unnamed woman, on the other hand, would have long since become used to being an outcast. She cooked up her plan to “just touch his robe” and fully believed that this would heal her, and “no one would know”. Her plan worked, except that Jesus DID know and he halted the progress of the entourage to the home of Jairus in order to speak with the woman. His response to her need shows that he could include everyone in his “circle of healing”. His response also shows that he understood the mysterious relationship between doing the right things and illness. Despite the popular opinion of the time he knew that sometimes you don’t have to do anything wrong to become sick. The important thing for Jesus was the unconditional love of God in the healing and the relationship with the woman that became a part of her healing. She came to know that she was NOT a second class child of God. He cared about the people in need, not about doing things, “right”.

Everyone would agree that COVID has impacted our lives, as a community, and individuals in such a way that we have thought of little else since a year ago March. Some things we have had to put on hold BY LAW. Some of our church outreach programs could not take place because there was no safe way to run them and I lament this. In Saskatchewan our self-isolation protocols have been far less strict than those in parts of Ontario, for example but we are still restricted.

In the midst of this there are the people for whom this year and the last were and are no more or less special than another year. For people in life transitions, it is somewhat different. Couples looking forward to a certain kind of wedding have had to change plans, sometimes several times as rules changed more than once over the time period when people plan these things.

Teens look forward to high school graduation for years, for example. Even though none of my graduations involved the hoopla that is now common with grad, I would not have liked to have received my diploma in the mail. Crossing that stage was important to me. Many folks are going out of their way to make these special events as normal as possible for our young people. One small Maritime town I know of has flags for each graduate, similar to our Pike Festival” flags. A mom I know went on a tour around the town , looking for her daughter (or more specifically) her flag!

A common response to requests at this time is, “NO, we can’t handle anything more”. We have our lives in the midst of all the COVID complications and that is more than enough. Please let us just get beyond COVID before we tend to any needs beyond our jobs and our households.” I get it. I understand it!

If we see the gospel passage as a “ministry manifesto” we must ask the question, “what does this passage say about our response to the vulnerable - and Jairus’ daughter and the unnamed woman were certainly vulnerable. What does it say specifically in the midst of COVID?

At the end of May, Canadians were shocked when the news broke that the unmarked graves of 215 children were found on the grounds of a residential school in Kamloops BC. Just Thursday I heard there were 751 possible graves detected near a former school near Melville, here in Saskatchewan.

The whole country is in shock but many would say that we should not be surprised because survivors, and others, including the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, have told us that the graves were there, somewhere, perhaps at every school!

Calls have been made for an apology from Pope Francis and government funding has been sought, and in some cases, received, to hire the experts who are needed for this search.

Hotlines have been established for the survivors and their families as old wounds have been opened and the grief and anger brought to the surface. Why now? Why can’t it wait? Surely these are all what the police would call, “cold cases”? We have too much to do right now; let’s put this on the agenda for “After COVID”.

The reality is that the need is now and the breaking hearts should not be told, YET AGAIN, that we are too busy, or not ready.

We are also told WE need to sit in the grief, listen to the stories and wait for the next steps to become clear. Jesus often asked the people who came to him. “What do you want me to do for you?” So we are called to sit and listen to the grief until those most affected decide what they need. I like to fix stuff. If a kid breaks a toy I tend to offer a new one; no harm no foul. Yet this is raw grief, anger, and a whole bunch of other raw and painful emotions. We can’t fix it - the best we can do is listen and eventually say, “What can do?”

When we look at our lives, in general, like Henri Nouwen we may have to be more open to the needs that come our way because that ends up “being our work”. We don’t wait for the best time to rescue a child who has wandered into a swimming pool or onto a busy street but sometimes we can put things off. We need to hone our discernment skills.

Our discipleship is not intended to wear us our completely BUT we are meant to be constantly aware that our plans may change as opportunities for service come our way.

On some of these occasions we may just experience the healing power of God’s love coursing through us and we know that we have had a part in changed lives.

What a blessing that is.

Amen.