Yr B ~ Pentecost 8 ~ Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

I was at a church conference once, and at the obligatory Q&A time one of the questioners asked a really deep and heartfelt ‘elephant in the room’ kind of question that perfectly summed up what every person at the conference was desperately trying to get to the heart of. The headline presenter – the one whose wisdom everyone had come to hear – paused thoughtfully, breathed deeply, looked out at the anticipating crowd, and said this, “That is exactly the right question, and there is a simple and obvious answer to it that will solve this problem once and for all – and ‘Jim’ over there is going to tell you what it is.” Of course, ‘Jim’ had no clue he was getting thrown under the bus. Everyone roared in laughter (yes, even ‘Jim’), because we all knew that the question was not simple and obvious to answer. It was complex, and nuanced, and no quick and easy ‘technical’ answer was going to get anywhere near addressing the issue. What was needed was a paradigm shift, an ‘adaptive’ approach that requires a whole culture change.

I tell that story because this is the conclusion of a 3-week sermon series on the topic of the E-word – evangelism – and I teased this week’s message as being about ‘how’ to do it. The first week was about what evangelism is and isn’t – last week was about the enormity of the challenge of our current context, and also the hope that there are cracks in everything and everyone out there where God’s light can get in – and that we’ll need to help. And this week is supposedly about how to do it. And just like that heartfelt question at the conference I spoke of, we all want to get to the heart of this. And just like that equally heartfelt non-answer, we know that there’s no easy answer, and that the ‘how to do it’ part will never be a simple technique that we can just learn and apply. No, it’ll require a whole culture change – and those take time. So let’s get started!

I told you that I’ve been using a great book as a resource for this evangelism sermon series. It’s called Unbinding the Gospel: Real Life Evangelism by Martha Grace Reese. So to prepare for this last sermon I went to her website and saw a ‘download additional resources’ link. Great! I happily clicked it! It began with a checklist for pastors. Awesome.
Number 1, read the book and decide if it will be a good fit for your congregation. Check!

Number 2 – (In all capital letters) “PLEASE DON’T PREACH or do a newsletter article about Unbinding the Gospel.” (Oops!)
She continues, “It doesn’t help. It will create resistance. Preaching won’t help. A newsletter article won’t inspire. Be quiet. Operate by stealth. Let the group process and the Spirit start working with people. You’re trying to help a lay movement emerge, not give them more information.”

Ok, so I guess we’re done! Short sermon! What’s the next hymn?

No, I’m just kidding. I get why she said that stuff though. She’s anticipating pastors speaking cold into congregations who may not be ready to hear these ideas. Happily, that’s not my context. And she’s worried it’ll come across as information – which is not at all the same as transformation, or culture change. This will become really clear as I get into her core ‘how to’ ideas. Spoiler alert – they’re going to sound really familiar to you – because we’ve already been immersed in these things for years!

You see, this book that I’ve been referencing is actually just the first of 3 books that outline her whole 3-year long transformational concept. The second book is called Unbinding Your Church, and the third book is called Unbinding Your Heart. Perhaps you’ve figured out by now that we’re not actually talking about ‘how to’ do evangelism but about ‘how to’ transform your church and the people who comprise the community of faith.

In other words, the simple and obvious answer that will solve this problem once and for all is the same kind of answer that we already know deeply whenever we say, “Surely, God is in this place. Help me notice!” Several years ago now this congregation began that journey of opening ourselves to noticing God’s Sacred Presence everywhere and always – in everything and in everyone. And that noticing tunes us in to beauty, and compassion, and love wherever we are. And that kind of immersion in noticing God’s constant loving Presence fills us with love, and helps us perceive God’s kingdom – which, like fish in an ocean, we’re already swimming in. It moves us from a head-based intellectual approach to faith to an integrated and fuller head-and-heart-based approach. And the more we swim in that love the more we notice, and the more our hearts feel strangely warmed.

And now we’re back at our first definition of evangelism. A person with a strangely warmed heart, nurtured in a vibrant, and loving, and supportive community of faith, sharing that warmth and love, and the reasons for it, with people they’re in relationships with, so that those people might experience the depth of joy, and peace, and shalom, and flourishing, and love that we experience through our faith.

In the actual ‘how to’ part of her book, Martha Grace Reese basically says that the very first step, before you do any other thing, is that you should be praying. Praying as an individual follower of Jesus, and also praying as a church (in small groups or as a whole) that hearts may be warmed, people may be nourished and nurtured, and faith stories and experiences may be shared both within and beyond the church.
You know how I always say love, love, love?
Well, the key to evangelism is to pray, pray, pray.
Steep yourself and your church in prayer.
Have prayer not be an awkward thing you tag onto a meeting ‘cuz you’re supposed to, but the kind of thing that absolutely grounds and powers your meeting.
Have prayer be so ubiquitous that it actually feels wrong if you don’t pray.
Have prayer be so celebrated and shared that numerous people offer to offer prayers at every gathering. (This isn’t just a lay person thing. You oughta see the eyes glued to shoes when someone asks ‘would anyone like to pray us in?” for a clergy meeting.)

Pray, pray, pray.
Pray like you can, not like you can’t.
Start with mumbles and stumbles. But pray. Pray your heart out.
A church may attract a certain number of people by good deeds, or the charisma of a leader, but churches flourish and grow when the Spirit is felt to be moving – and the single greatest animator of Spirit has always been prayerfulness. Sing your prayers, speak your prayers, pray in silence – but pray, pray, pray.

This is why the author said not to preach about evangelism at first – because it’s gibberish to a church that isn’t a praying church – and it’s scary nonsense to people who aren’t praying people. read on →

Yr B ~ Pentecost 7 ~Mark 6:14-29

I thought about calling this sermon “What We’re Up Against”, but I decided that sounded too ominous. So I kept searching for a way to lighten it up. Honestly, I’m not sure I can. It is what it is. I eventually landed on calling it “Cohen & Cockburn” – which I’m particularly pleased with – and I hope you’ll understand why by the end of it. But I’m getting way ahead of myself. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover before I can get into that inspired title.

This is the second week of a 3-part series on the E-word – yes, evangelism! If you weren’t with us last week I really encourage you to go to our website (faithunited.ca) and look up the sermon. It was called “Two By Two.” In it I went on at length about what evangelism is and isn’t, and why I feel it’s such an important thing for us to be focusing on now. So last week was groundwork, this week is about obstacles and realities, and next week is about strategies. I will say again that this series is inspired by a wonderful book by Martha Grace Reese called Unbinding the Gospel: Real Life Evangelism.

Let’s start by thinking about that wild scripture reading we heard. Are you wondering why I selected such a thing? I mean, it’s nasty stuff, and it doesn’t seem to have anything whatsoever to do with evangelism – which is about person with a warmed heart, nurtured in a vibrant church, encountering someone they have some kind of relationship with, and somehow sharing a sense of the benefit of it all, and how it’s warmed and nurtured.

So while it doesn’t really speak to evangelism – it absolutely speaks to what we’re up against. And it offers a glimmer of hope that I think is really easy to miss – both in this scripture passage, and in real life.

The scene is in King Herod’s court. It starts with a debate over whether Jesus was the re-embodiment of the great prophet Elijah, or of John the Baptizer. Herod says Jesus is like John, whom Herod had had beheaded. And the narrator fills us in that John the Baptizer had taken Herod to task for Herod’s morals and ethics. And the narrator also tells us that despite John’s scoldings Herod had a great interest in John.
Here’s the line – the one that I think is the hidden gem in this passage:

Mark 6:20 – Herod feared John, knowing that John was a righteous and holy man, and Herod protected him.
When Herod heard John (speak), he was greatly perplexed; and yet he liked to listen to him.

Then we get a flashback scene like in the movies.
It’s Herod’s birthday and there’s a great party. Herod’s daughter Herodias (who has the same name as his wife – yeah, it’s very confusing) – anyway, the daughter dances and mesmerizes everyone, and Herod in a moment of foolishness gushes at her that he’ll give her anything she wants. She goes to her mom, who because of Herod’s (and hers) illicit and immoral actions had been humiliated by John the Baptizer’s rebukes, and mom tells daughter to ask for John the Baptizer’s head on a platter. Herod, it says was “deeply grieved”, but he felt he couldn’t refuse and John’s head is lopped off. Gruesome stuff.

And that’s evangelism! [grin]
No, obviously I’m going to make a point. Soon. I promise!

The point is that this is what we’re up against. No, I don’t mean any of us are in any danger of being beheaded. But John in this story, well always really, was an evangelist. He was evangelizing Herod. John’s heart was passionately stirred by God, he had a supportive community of faith (including Jesus, if you’ll recall), and he wanted to share with Herod how John’s life was better because of the God-thing, and so too could Herod’s life be better.
THAT’S evangelism!

Remember Mark 6:20 – When Herod heard John (speak), he was greatly perplexed; and yet he liked to listen to him. read on →

Yr B ~ Pentecost 6 ~ Mark 6:1-13

It’s worship day, and Jesus finds himself back in his hometown. So he goes to the local synagogue – to what amounts to his home church – and he begins to teach. It says that many who heard him were ‘astounded’. But it’s not the good kind of astounded. It’s more like they’re shocked or mortified. I kinda get it. I mean, I love y’all, but if one of you went away for a while and then popped back in on a Sunday morning, and walked up to this spot, and looked into the camera, and started preaching, well, I’d be a little ‘astounded’ too!

Their complaints amount to “That’s Jesus. Joe and Mary’s kid. Who does he think he is?”
And Jesus responds, “Prophets are not without honour, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.”
In other words, Jesus is saying that it’s hard to talk to your family about religion!
Hands up all those who agree.

But that’s exactly what we’re going to be talking about today, and for the next two Sundays. I’m doing a sermon series on the E-word – yes, evangelism. My goal is to change that queasy feeling you just got when I said that word, and have you embrace it. That’s a tall order when for a lot of folks the E-bomb may as well be the F-bomb! For the series I’ll be drawing extensively on a fantastic book by Martha Grace Reese called Unbinding the Gospel: Real Life Evangelism.

Let’s start at the beginning. We all know the E-word, but what does it actually mean?
You’ve probably heard the phrase ‘sharing/spreading the gospel’.
Hmm. What does ‘gospel’ mean? We call those 4 books in the bible the gospels, is that it? Nope.
Gospel means ‘good news’. So it’s about sharing the good news!
What good news?
And here’s where we stub our toes.

When I say ‘evangelism’ the type that probably comes to mind is a theological one – and it advances a certain theological interpretation that is not necessarily cut and dried – even though the people doing that kind of evangelism try to say it is. They would tend to say “the good news about what Jesus did for us on the cross.” And instantly we’re in a theological tussle and trying to convince somebody that our position is the right one.
Friends, that kind of E-bomb is an F-bomb!
And it’s absolutely the worst and least effective form of evangelism there is.

So if I don’t mean that, what do I mean?
Effective evangelism is really only about one thing: YOU.
Your life.
Specifically, it’s about how your life is positively impacted by your faith. The ‘good news’ is that your life feels better because of your faith than it would without your faith. You don’t have to know anything about theology, or liturgy, or psychology, or any other –gy – you only have to know about your own self. And for most of us that’s our favourite subject!

What do you think Jesus was teaching that day in the synagogue? Was he schooling them in the finer points of theology, or debating their understanding of scripture interpretation and atonement? Not very likely.

Or was he maybe sharing with them how his own life had been so dramatically changed, and how his faith had deepened, and how his sense of God’s Presence had so intensified that it felt like every single breath was filling him with spiritual energy, and passion, and peace of heart, and empowering him to reach out in love and help the people he met as best he could?
That sounds like Jesus to me! And that’s what evangelism is. Sharing how your life has been positively impacted by your faith.

Before he was famous, John Wesley was becoming disillusioned in his work as a preacher. He wasn’t feeling it. He was going through the motions. read on →

Yr B ~ Pentecost 4 (Indigenous Sunday) ~ 2 Corinthians 8:7-15 (MSG)

It’s good for us to remember that these letters from Paul that we have in the bible were written because something had gone amiss and Paul needed to send a word of correction to a community of faith. That’s why his letters so often have an edge to them. He tends to come down pretty hard on the people, and you don’t have to read too deeply between the lines to sense his exasperation. And then we get passages like the one we’re looking at today, where Paul is gushing with praise, and gently urging the church to keep on doing the great stuff they’re doing.

Faith United is a very vibrant and healthy church. If Paul were around today, he wouldn’t need to be sending very many letters scolding us. But he might very well send the words we’ve heard today.

2 Corinthians 8:7 – You do so well in so many things—you trust [love] God, you’re articulate, you’re insightful, you’re passionate, you love us—now, do your best in this, too.

I think that sounds exactly like us! We really do so well in so many things – in so many ministries. We love God, we’re articulate, and insightful, and passionate. We’re caring, and compassionate, and generous. Last week was Celebration Sunday and we rightfully shone a light on some of the wonderful, faithful things we do and the wonderful, faithful people who do them.

But nobody’s perfect, and no church is either. After lauding them with praise Paul says, “Now do your best in this, too.” What is the “this” that he’s talking about? Well, in that specific case he’s talking about money. He’s talking about getting these wealthy Corinthian Christians to continue to support another of Paul’s churches that is financially poor. That would not be his message to us. So what would?

What ministry or issue might we collectively need to do better at? Remember, he’s not scolding the Corinthians here – he’s just nudging them to remember their professed values and put their money where their mouths are. And neither am I trying to scold you or point out some fault. But I will lift up an issue that I think we can collectively do better at. Today that issue is Indigenous justice. Let’s use that lens to look at Paul’s message.

2 Corinthians 8:10-12 – So here’s what I think: The best thing you can do right now is to finish what you started (previously) and not let those good intentions grow stale. Your heart’s been in the right place all along. You’ve got what it takes to finish it up, so go to it. Once the commitment is clear, you do what you can, not what you can’t. The heart regulates the hands.

It’s easy to be thinking about Indigenous issues these days. Sadly, that’s because the news has been full of terrible injustices inflicted upon Indigenous persons, especially children. We are understandably horrified by the finding of the mass grave of 215 Indigenous children who were forced to attend the Kamloops Residential School. More such graves are being found at other schools. The news will not be getting any better any time soon. Knowing that our denomination, our church, had a direct hand in running some of those schools makes our stomachs churn. Yes, such things were the way of the world in former times, and yes we’ve grown and learned and would not do those things today – but the legacy remains and the damage is still felt acutely in Indigenous people and communities.

I know with every fibre of my being that we want to do something to make this better. But we can’t ‘fix’ it. Paul says, “The best thing you can do right now is to (continue) what you started (previously) and not let those good intentions grow stale. Your heart’s been in the right place all along.”

What can we do? To begin, we can face the realities instead of turning away. And we can continue to learn, to listen, and to commit to doing better. As a denomination we are already walking that path. Our Church has acknowledged the hurt, offered a sincere apology, and is striving to walk a new path – a path of healing. I once heard an Indigenous elder speaking about how the hurt and the injustices built up over time. They said that it took a long time to walk into the forest and it would take a long time to walk back out, but that it was good that we are walking together.

I want to talk about language for a few minutes. Usually this work of Indigenous justice is called reconciliation. Lately I’ve been hearing some discomfort with this language from some Indigenous folk. read on →

Yr B ~ Pentecost 3 ~ 2 Corinthians 5:6-17

Walk by faith not by sight. Perceive the world differently.
That’s really what today’s scripture passage is about. Unfortunately, it twists and turns, and uses problematic language, and seems to suggest dodgy theology, but let me assure you that it’s not really like that. I’ll poke at some of it, but we don’t have enough time for us to try to undo some of the stuff it does. I think one of the reasons it’s hard to interpret at first is because we may not appreciate just how profound verse 7 is: we walk by faith, not by sight. It’s catchy. It’s probably familiar to you. But are you aware of how much of a profound paradigm shift it’s suggesting?

The ‘we’ Paul is referring to, I think, is we the body of Christ – those who follow Jesus – those who abide in God’s Love and celebrate God’s Ever-Presence.
WE walk by faith. THEY (those people who are not Christ-followers) walk by sight.
We trust in Something More – they trust in what they can see, and touch, and test, and explain. It does sound like it’s creating an ‘us and them’ thing, but it isn’t about exclusion, it’s just about explaining a difference. The difference is how one perceives the world. In biblical metaphors that often gets talked about as ‘seeing’ – or not seeing as the case may be.

Having a different paradigm for perceiving the world has huge implications for your life. If you see the world as God’s Kingdom, God’s realm, God’s really real reality – and you strive to follow the teaching of Jesus who says the way to navigate this kingdom of God that we swim in is to love – then your actions and your interactions will be shaped by that paradigm of love.
That’s what we’re celebrating today – on celebration Sunday. We’re celebrating the ways in which we, as a community of faith called Faith United – live out that love that fills us and flows through us.

The thing that kicks off our celebrations is that on a Sunday near June 10^th we mark the anniversary of our denomination – the United Church of Canada – which is now 96 years old!
When we’re in-person Celebration Sunday always marks the end of the ‘formal’ Joyful Noise program and begins the shift into summer programming. We celebrate the kids – and we celebrate the leaders who share their spirit with the kids.
So I will celebrate Stacey Tremblay today – for the incredible and creative work she’s done through this pandemic season to provide wonderful resources for families. I know that others are also offering leadership with the kids, and youth, too. Thank you!

We celebrate that for 3 years now we have been an Affirming congregation. What does it mean to be Affirming? It means that we’re more than just nice, and more than just welcoming, and more than just accepting. It means we’re public, intentional, and explicit about our welcome. It means we really mean it when we say we’re inclusive. It means that we strive to provide a spiritual home that is openly welcoming, nurturing and safe whatever a person’s ability/disability, age, ethnicity, exceptionality, gender identity, sexual orientation, or social or economic circumstance; and that we encourage all who gather here to participate freely in the life and work of this church. I celebrate that!

I could go on and on about so many of our shared ministries here at Faith, but I will risk highlighting two – one that you know about and one that you may not. These two ministries exemplify exactly what it means to live out the love of God in action and interaction.
I’m talking about Sheila Ellis and our Church Work in Durham group (CWID) that supports so many community ministries and agencies on behalf of our church. To the CWID group, I celebrate your gift of leading us into loving others.
And I’m also talking about our Visiting/Care team. You may not realize it but Donna Bignell and this team of compassionate and caring folks regularly phone and visit members of this church who have a harder time being connected because of illness, or age, or circumstance. I am so grateful to this group for the ministry they share on our behalf. I celebrate your gift of loving one another.

I also celebrate all the people who are part of our worship experience each week. Zeljka (our musician), and also the choir who record themselves singing alone and then get mixed together for a video. The soloists and instrumentalists who share their talents. The scripture readers, the tech team who make this all work so seamlessly (most weeks, touch wood), Stacey who anchors our social media presence, and all of you who tune in and have church on your couch when you could be out doing something else, especially on a gorgeous day like today. I celebrate this gift of loving God together.

Why do we do all this stuff? Why do we engage in all these ministries together? read on →

Yr B ~ Pentecost 2 ~ 2 Corinthians 4:13-18 (MSG)

Ok, let’s just start by getting it all out on the table. There’s a lot of stuff swirling around these days. This month we become more intentional than usual about issues concerning LGBTQ2S persons with Pride Week. We become more intentional than usual about issues concerning anti-black racism as we acknowledge Juneteenth – the official end of slavery in the United States. Canada marks a similar day on August 1^st. And we become more intentional than usual about issues concerning Indigenous, First Nations, Inuit, and Metis persons as we mark June as National Aboriginal History Month. With the recent unearthing of horrors at the former Kamloops Residential School, and the chilling knowledge that such horrors were probably not limited to that one school, a month of focus on Indigenous peoples seems supremely important.

Now we pile on top of all that the fact that we’ve been languishing under a worldwide health pandemic for almost a year and a half, with our lives dramatically altered and our spirits labouring under the weight of so much separation, and fear, and anxiety, and disconnectedness, and isolation, and frustration – not to mention the physical hardship of those who’ve been infected by the virus, the financial hardship of so many businesses who’ve been eviscerated by it, and the emotional hardship of those who’ve missed out on vital gatherings for things like funerals, or significant celebrations, or life milestones. Sure, our vaccination rate is steadily improving, and yes you should feel perfectly safe to go and get yours (all of my family has now been vaccinated – so too should yours be). But even though the light at the end of tunnel appears to be getting bigger and closer, it somehow feels even further away right now because we’re all so weary, and fatigued, and wrung out by this whole incomprehensible ordeal.

Like I said, there’s a lot of stuff swirling around these days. What does scripture say to us? In today’s reading from 2 Corinthians 4:17 the apostle Paul offers this: These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us.

Small potatoes? SMALL POTATOES?
No, Paul, with all due respect. These are all big, honking potatoes.
(Yes, I had some other choice adjectives in there but I edited them out!)
It’s true that everyone encounters hardships and suffers from time to time. Some seasons feel especially soul-crushing. Maybe that’s where you are these days. Whatever your challenges may be today, or however you may be feeling the weight of the world these days, to call that ‘small potatoes’ is an inexcusable insult.

Now, to be fair to our friend Paul, he was specifically writing about himself and his own situation – which was that he was in prison for daring to preach the gospel of Jesus that said God’s ways are better than the world’s ways (and Caesar’s ways), and that love, love, love (loving God, loving neighbour, loving one another) was better than anything. That kind of subversive talk got him chucked in prison, and beaten, and in legitimate fear for his life. Now, Paul himself looked at his own situation and evaluated it as being ‘small potatoes’ in comparison to the joy of his hoped-for and expected freedom. That’s ok. You can look at your own hardships and declare them small potatoes. I wouldn’t dream of ever making that claim for anyone other than myself.

But that’s how we tend to read scripture.
Paul was in prison and said it was small potatoes so therefore all my worries are supposed to be small potatoes too, right?
Nope. Paul speaks for Paul. You speak for you.
We can look at his experience and ask questions that may help us with our own situations, but that’s as far as it goes.
Scripture is not a paint-by-numbers, step-by-step, insert-your-situation-here kind of deal. It’s a journal or diary filled with the stories of ordinary people having extraordinary experiences of God’s Presence and Love. So we can learn from Paul’s experience, and even admire it and aspire to it, but this is not an I-did-it-now-you-do-it thing.

So let’s step back and read the passage from a more global viewpoint. read on →