Fear and faith in the storms of life

Texts: 2 Corinthians 6 1-13 (day of salvation) ; Mark 4 35-41 (Jesus calms the storm)

Several times over the past 20 years, I have tried to adopt meditation as one of my spiritual disciplines. But so far, none of these attempts have stuck.

In meditation, one tries to calm and focus the mind by moving attention again and again to one's breathing. Doing so is supposed to help thoughts and anxieties that constantly chatter away at the back of your mind drift away.

The problem is many people like me cannot focus our attention on a simple thing like breathing for more than a few seconds. We find it difficult to reach the gracious emptiness that lies beyond our anxious inner thoughts.

In reading our familiar Gospel story today about Jesus calming the storm, I am reminded of a meditation tape I once used. Unlike many meditation practices which involve sitting up straight, this one was designed to be practiced while lying on one's back. The tape suggested that the listener imagine he or she were resting comfortably on the bottom of a beautiful lake while breathing from an oxygen tank.

The listener was encouraged to regard the anxious thoughts that float across the mind as frothy waves far away at the lake's surface. No matter how stormy life seemed to be at the surface, at the bottom of the lake, all remained stable and calm. Amid this stability and calm, the listener was directed to focus on his or her breathing and let any anxious thoughts churn away harmlessly at the surface.

Perhaps this is one way to see Jesus' ability to sleep through a fearsome storm in the stern of a boat while his friends, the disciples, become frantic at the danger. Jesus shows them that beneath the surface of life's many crises and storms, there is another a place where we can remain trusting and faithful, a place where life's dangers do not shake our confidence.

After the disciples awake him, Jesus calms the waves and rebukes the winds. Yet even after this miracle, his friends remain terrified.

I sympathize with the disciples because there seems to be so much to fear in life. Take nature. Mostly we love the beauty of our world. We rely on the the rain, soil and sun to help us grow crops. But as we know, nature is not always calm and gentle. A season of bounty can be followed by one of drought or hail. And the fury of nature's storms often leads to destruction. The people in Saskatchewan who have lived through tornadoes this summer can attest to that fact.

Nevertheless, Jesus tells us to have faith instead of fear. One reading of the story might suggest that we should have faith because Jesus calms the storm and protects his friends from the winds and waves.

But that would be too simple, I believe. Jesus will soon head to Jerusalem where he will be betrayed, arrested and executed. Not only that, Jesus will urge his followers to take up their own cross and follow him. Far from calming the storms of life, Jesus heads directly into the centre of the storm of his time, and he calls us to follow him.

I believe that the faith Jesus exhibits as he sleeps in the boat in the middle of a stormy night is a faith that comes from accepting the inevitable crises and pain of life. It is not a faith that believes that God will magically make all these crises disappear with a simple command.

Jesus shows us another source of faith. Although storms, pain and death are inevitable in life, there is a deeper sense in which we are safe in the midst of all of life's storms. At the deepest places in our souls, God is with us . . .

The storms of life were in evidence, I think, at the meeting of the United Church's General Council, which ended in Ottawa yesterday. Like General Councils before it, this one often seemed gruelling and filled with disputes; at least, that was the impression I got as I watched sessions broadcast live from a church website.

But despite the turmoil at the meeting, I am pleased with its outcomes. For one, we have a new Moderator. He is Dr. Rev. Gary Paterson of St. Andrew's Wesley United in downtown Vancouver.

The headline about Paterson is that he is gay. In fact, he is the first openly gay person to be elected to the top position of any mainline church anywhere. Paterson is married to another ordained United Church minister, Rev. Tim Stevenson, who now serves as a Councillor on Vancouver's City Council.

But I agree with Paterson that the headline about his election could just as equally be the fact that his sexual orientation and that of two other gay nominees for Moderator was not an issue in the election.

I think that Paterson has a lot to offer our church beyond his role as trail-breaker for gay people. I am drawn to his passion, poetic nature, pastoral skills, and long experience in ministry. I listened to the speeches of all 15 nominees, and I liked the one given by Paterson the best. I believe that we are lucky to have him as our Moderator for the next three years.

The Council also passed resolutions that expanded the doctrine section of our Basis of Union, modified the United Church Crest to incorporate First Nations themes into its design, adopted a new Statement on Ministry, and wrestled with many other topics. These decisions occurred between numerous worship services of singing, sharing, reflection and prayer.

There was also the debate around Israel/Palestine. I am pleased that the Council moved forward with many of the resolutions of the report of a working group on that issue, this despite lobbying against it by groups who support the illegal Israeli settlements on the West Bank of the Jordan River.

The issue of Israel/Palestine presents many difficulties, of course -- 3,000 years of disputed history; confusion about the roles of Judaism, Christianity and Islam; western military intervention in the region since World War One; links between violence in the Middle East and anti-semitism and Islamophobia in Canada; the rise of both fundamentalism and secularism in our lifetimes; differences between Stephen Harper's positions in the region and those of previous Canadian governments; and recent popular revolts against U.S.-backed dictators in Arab regimes. All this and more tends to muddy the debate.

Nevertheless, General Council moved our church further along a path of trying to respond to our Christian partners in the region even as it listened to different voices within Canada, including Jewish leaders who support the settlements and Jewish leaders who oppose them . . .

General Council did not always look to me like a placid or easy event. But the Council did its work with enthusiasm and good will, and for that we can all be grateful.

Our church often seems like a stormy place. But we also are a church that chooses faith over fear again and again. We try to stand for justice. When we stumble, we get up and try again, because we want to respond to God's call. We confront difficult issues like sexuality and politics in the Holy Land. When this upsets other churches or some of our own members, we listen but try to move forward because we want to respond to God's call. In the face of criticism both from secular and fundamentalist sources, we carry on because God in Christ calls us to faith and not fear.

Still, the turmoil of these debates might sometimes be difficult to take. When that is true for us, perhaps we could try to be like meditator praying at the bottom of the lake. Perhaps we could see all the heat, heartache and effort of the discussions in our church as the waves occurring far above the stable and beautiful lake bottom where we lay praying and breathing secure in the embrace of God's love.

Now, the difficulties I have had with meditation over the years show that this trusting place is often hard for me to find. But God's Grace continually clears the path to calm places where fear drifts away and we know that regardless of our circumstances, we are saved.

In our other Scripture reading today -- the one from St. Paul's second letter to the church in Corinth -- the apostle says that "now is the acceptable time; now is the day of salvation!" No matter how difficult a day might seem to us, Paul reminds us that it is always a day of salvation when we are in Christ.

Our new Moderator, Gary Paterson, likes to quote poetry. So I will end this sermon with a poem about the day of salvation, which Paterson quoted at the end of his acceptance speech on Thursday. It is titled "This Amazing Day" by e.e. cummings.

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened).

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Justice, kindness and humility in the United Church of Canada

Text: Michah 6:6-8 (What does the Lord require of you?)

When I was growing up in Cornwall Ontario, issues of justice and equality seemed to dominate worship at the United Church in which my father was minister. We often focused on poverty in the Global South and on our responsibility as people who live in a rich and privileged country to give generously to foreign missions. As well, we were urged to imagine a different world where wealth would be shared more equally.

It was also around this time that concerns about the environment first began to appear in the media. Having become aware of some of these environmental issues, I argued with my father that our church should stop focusing so much attention on poverty in the South and instead wake up to the fact that Canada was also at risk. I argued that the environment should be our top concern.

I remembered that argument with my father as I prepared for this service with its focus on social justice. None of us are opposed to justice, peace and equality. But how do we decide which are the most important issues; and how should the church try to tackle them? In other words, what does the Lord require of us?

Micah's answer to that question -- to seek justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God -- provides the theme for this week's meeting of the United Church of Canada's General Council. 350 commissioners from across Canada are gathered in Ottawa under the banner "Seeking, Loving, and Walking." General Council is the highest governing body of our church and meets once every three years.

The phrase from Micah, "to seek justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God,"  is one of the most well-loved passages in the Old Testament. This is especially the case in liberal denominations like the United Church. The passage says that acting justly and with kindness and humility is more important in God's eyes than how we worship or what we believe.

So this weekend as commissioners from across Canada begin their week-long meeting of prayer, discernment, and decision-making, I look at the place of social justice, loving-kindness, and humility in the life of the United Church.

Humility did not come easily to the United Church. Our church was founded in 1925 in a huge burst of enthusiasm. By combining the Methodist, Presbyterian, and Congregationalist churches in Canada, we became the largest Protestant denomination in Canada. At our height 55 years ago, more than 30% of English Canadians saw the United Church as their spiritual home. We were an inspired and inspiring church, and we used our prominence to take a lead on many social issues in Canada. 

There wasn't much controversy about the liberal nature of the United Church and its political positions until the 1960s. Then the cultural upheavals in the United States around civil rights for African Americans and women, opposition to the war in Vietnam, and the rise of a youth culture of sex, drugs and rock and roll upset the confidence and unity of North American churches.

In the decades since then, churches have chosen one of two political paths. Some like the United Church have remained liberal. We support the rights of poor nations in the South and oppressed minorities in our own country. Other churches emphasize conservative themes such as support for the dominance of Western countries and traditional notions of marriage and morality.

It is not true that some churches are political and others are not. All denominations take a keen interest in social and political concerns, which makes sense when we remember Jesus' ministry. Jesus worked among the poor and he stood in opposition to the Roman Empire of his day. What is most striking to me is how the church has so often supported Empire -- archbishops crowning kings, popes crowning emperors, and clergy everywhere urging young men to march off to war in defence of the empire -- all of which seems completely foreign to the work of Jesus' with the victims of empire.

But while all churches have political concerns, all of us have also had to adjust to the church's reduced power in Canadian society in recent decades. When the United Church's General Council last met in Ottawa in 1958, Prime Minister John Diefenbaker addressed it. Today it is unthinkable that Prime Minister Stephen Harper would address the meeting.

Despite this decline in our prestige, it is church statements on political topics that give us the most media coverage. On the left, people complain when conservative churches pressure the government to enforce traditional morality around issues like abortion or marriage. 

On the right, people complain when a church takes a stand against imperialism. This year, the hot button topic for the United Church is again Israel and Palestine. Nine members of the Canadian Senate, all of whom are members of the United Church,  recently wrote an Open Letter to the General Council criticizing a report on Israel/Palestine whose recommendations will be discussed at the meeting this week.

Personally, I am pleased with this report, which was written by three church leaders including a former Moderator. I am in sympathy with its recommendations that we oppose continued Israeli occupation of the West Bank of the Jordan and Gaza Strip. On the other hand, I can understand why some people might be upset.

Until the last few generations, churches always supported the empires in which they had been nurtured. In World War I, it would have been unthinkable for German churches to oppose the Kaiser in his attempt to break free of British dominance of the world, just as it would have been unthinkable for the churches in Britain or Canada not to support the King in his attempt to keep Germany from succeeding. 

I am unsure if many of us in the United Church understand how big the change in our stance towards empire has been in the last 100 or even 50 years. I am pleased that our church tries to raise awareness of problems associated with Western imperialism. I think such work is well-grounded in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, this orientation marks a 180 degree change from where the church stood for more than 1500 years. 

One of the reasons churches are now free to speak out against the evils of racism, war, and pollution is because we no longer play a key role in propping up the status quo. That role is now taken by the media, the school system, and other cultural forces. Churches have freedom to speak the Gospel truth as we see it because we are no longer considered all that important.

Church today has been shunted to the margins. This fact might make some of us feel nostalgic or sad. But the margins are also humble places, and as such, they are places from which we have a better chance to seek justice and practice loving-kindness to ourselves and our neighbours, I believe.

Humility seems like a good place to start when it comes to some of the big social problems of our time, problems such as nuclear weapons, climate change, environmental destruction, or peace in the Middle East. We try to respond to God's call to seek justice on such issues. But what one person, church, or even nation can do about such problems does not often seem clear.

I think that the United Church more or less gets it right. We take big issues seriously and we oppose economic or political policies that we believe might make things worse. On the other hand, we do so as a diminished force in our country and with the awareness that we don't have easy solutions for any of them.

So even as we seek justice, we are graciously forced to walk humbly with our God. This humble path is shown to us most clearly in the Way of the Cross of Christ. It is on this marginal path that we can also best show loving kindness to ourselves and our neighbours. We may not know how to slow climate change or keep the world safe from nuclear war. But we can be there for our neighbours when they mourn the loss of a loved one or celebrate a joyous occasion. We can try to be the hands and feet of Christ to one another in small ways even as we try to make our voices heard on bigger issues.

In this life, we encounter many problems, big and small. Life's ups and downs also force us to confront our limitations. We are broken sinners and holy fools; and the church is made up of other people as broken and as foolish as we are. 

Despite or because of our lack of power, we are free to speak truth to power and to stand with other oppressed and marginal people. In church as in the rest of life, we don't have easy answers. Instead, we have the suffering Christ who walks with us in our pain, our joy and our struggles for a world of more peace and justice.

So as General Council unfolds over the next week, let us pray that the delegates will feel the presence of the Crucified and Risen Christ. As they seek justice, may they know that they are broken and holy fools. And may all of us receive the grace to respond in love and kindness to everyone we meet and walk humbly with God in Christ.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

"The Plain Teaching of Scripture"

Text: John 6: 1-15, 25-35, 41-69 (the Bread of Life)

Today's long reading from the Gospel of John begins with the familiar story of Jesus feeding 5,000 people with a few loaves and fishes.

As is common, John adds more to the story than do the other three Gospel writers. He follows the feeding of the five thousand with a set of speeches by Jesus that connect that miraculous feeding to the sacrament of communion.

John alone tells us that the occasion of the miraculous feeding was Passover, which is also when Jesus' crucifixion will later occur. John alone has Jesus saying that he is the Bread of Life and that eating his flesh and blood is the only way to have life.

The chapter is filled with metaphors, claims, counter-claims, questions and puzzling responses. I imagine that at least some of us here today could relate to the following statement found in the reading: "Many of his disciples, when they heard Jesus, said, 'This is a hard teaching; who can listen to it?'"

In puzzling over this chapter this week, the phrase "the plain teaching of Scripture" came to mind. This phrase is often used by conservative Christians when arguing that tough questions can be answered by a simple reading of the Bible: perhaps the idea that only those who believe in Jesus Christ will be saved, as our reading today might imply; or that homosexuality is always a sin; or that women should not assume leadership in families or in churches.

Like many liberal Christians, I don't subscribe to the idea that tough questions can be answered simply by reading passages in the Bible. There are several reasons for adopting this attitude: the awareness that the Bible is a human product; that it was written over hundreds of years by scores of different authors; that some texts contradict others; and that it is often filled with metaphors, which makes Scripture more like poetry than a set of legal documents.

Some conservative Christians may be moving closer this attitude towards the Bible as well. I wondered about this when I read this week that Canada's Christian and Missionary Alliance Church reversed its opposition to women in ministry at its General Assembly meeting in Winnipeg last month. From now on, women as well as men will be ordained to ministry within the Alliance Church, as has been the case in the United Church since 1936.

The Alliance Church is smaller than the United Church, but the Alliance congregations in Coronach and Assiniboia are two of the biggest in our area. I am pleased that after years of debate and prayer their Church has come to this decision, and I hope that it will be welcomed in all parts of the denomination.

Equality between men and women remains a hot topic in some parts of the world. For instance, a lot has been made of the fact that the current Olympic Games in London is the first one where all national delegations include at least one female athlete. Islamic countries such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar have finally agreed to allow women to compete despite religious objections.

In Canada almost all of us accept the equality of men and women. But despite the legal equality now enjoyed by women in Canada, some Christian churches, including the largest one, the Roman Catholic Church, continue to discriminate against women when it comes to ministry. Such churches usually justify this stance because of the "plain teaching of Scripture."

Indeed, there are places in the Bible where a text plainly says that women should not lead in church. The most notorious is First Timothy: "A woman should learn in quietness and full submission.  I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety."

There you have it: clear direction from Holy Scripture that women should submit to men.  Except, what if one responds to such a text by saying, "So?" To treat such a text as more authoritative than the other means we use to understand the roles of women and men such as personal experience, social and cultural development, and scientific knowledge is to treat the books of the Bible as an idol in my opinion.

I don't know the details of the discussion in the Alliance General Assembly this summer, but I imagine that its decision on women in ministry might change the attitudes of some people within the Alliance Church towards the Bible.

Nor is the Alliance Church the only denomination changing its mind. Last year, the largest Lutheran denomination in Canada voted to allow openly gay and lesbian people to become ministers as did the Presbyterian churches in the United States and Scotland. Many here will remember how that issue divided the United Church in the 1980s. But a generation later, issues relating to sexuality are relatively uncontroversial among us.

Conservatives warn that ignoring texts like First Timothy on the role of women puts a church on a slippery slope that lead to heresy. I partly agree with them. But I believe that the slippery slope is a gracious one that can lead a church to greater hospitality and openness.

I am not suggesting that the Alliance Church will soon follow the United Church and some Anglican, Presbyterian and Lutheran denominations down this gracious slope to offer full acceptance to gay, lesbian or queer people, though I would be thrilled if that were to happen. I do believe that by turning its back on the "plain teaching" of texts like First Timothy on the role of women, the Alliance Church has taken a step away from a narrow focus on the words of Scripture. The words in the Bible, after all, are not God. They are just tools that we use in our own stumbling ways to try and point to the God who is Love.

Which leads me back to today's thick and difficult reading from John. What might it all mean? Several times in it, Jesus says that belief in him leads to eternal life. But what does eternal life mean? Is it a quality that we briefly taste when, with Grace, we stumble into a moment without ego? Is it a guarantee that our egos and all their selfish desires will live forever in heaven. And what about the big majority of people who have never heard of Jesus? Can they not achieve eternal life?

In our reading, why does Jesus both repeat the graphic images of eating his flesh and blood and then also say that it is God's Spirit that gives life and that the flesh is of no avail? Also, why does Jesus urge us to believe in him on the one hand and then on the other remind us that no one can come to him unless God draws them forward?  One could go on.

Well, whatever treasures and lessons this chapter contains, one thing I would never do is describe its teachings as plain. But despite not having any definitive conclusions, I will close with a few impressions.

I love Jesus' image of the Bread of Life. I appreciate the graphic nature of his words about eating his flesh and blood, despite the disquiet this causes to many of his disciples. I am also reassured when Jesus reminds us that all of life depends on God's Spirit. I am aware that the text might be interpreted as making belief a requirement for salvation. But I am pleased that Jesus counters that interpretation by saying that no one can come to him unless God the Father draws one forward. Here, Jesus reminds us of Grace.

Our reading today is the only place in John where Jesus talks about Holy Communion. Unlike Matthew, Mark, and Luke, John does not show Jesus instituting a sacrament of communion with his disciples on the night of his betrayal. As such, this seemed like an appropriate text for us to hear before communion today.

Communion symbolizes many things: the death and resurrection of Jesus, our physical and spiritual incorporation into God through an act of eating and drinking; and our status as recipients of the gift of eternal life.

In order for us to better grasp the concept of eternal life, we rely upon prayer, worship, service to the community, rituals like communion, and the many pain- and grace-filled experiences of our lives.

Knowing in our guts what Jesus means by the gift of eternal life sometimes comes in rare moments of awareness. Such moments do not happen every time we pray, every time we serve our family or neighbours in love, or every time we take the bread and cup. But such moments do occur; moments when we know with full confidence that we are of God and that God lives within us. Moments when the simple and everyday links up with eternity.

We cannot force such moments of union to happen. But Jesus assures us that God's Spirit continually draws us towards life eternal through Christ Jesus.

Jesus is the Bread of Life. Let us taste this truth again and remind ourselves not only in words but in our guts and our hearts that we are all part of God's eternity.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Hometown heroes

Texts: 2 Cor 12 2-10 (power in weakness); Mark 61-13 (Jesus rejected at Nazareth)

In our Gospel reading today, Jesus returns to his hometown of Nazareth where his reputation as a healer and preacher in other towns in Galilee has preceded him. Mark doesn't tell us what Jesus preaches in the synagogue in Nazareth, but he writes that Jesus' neighbours are amazed by what he says.

But instead of being happy with his powerful words and healings, the people from his hometown take offence and reject Jesus. They wonder how a simple carpenter like Jesus could have become a powerful preacher and a miraculous healer, let alone the Son of God.

Today, I use this brief mention of Jesus' hometown to spark a discussion among us about our hometowns. This is the first Sunday morning service since I arrived here last July where all three congregations are worshipping together. I hope that we can use this time to reflect on our hometowns and how they shape our ministry.

Near the end of this reflection, I am going to open the floor so that others can share stories of our hometowns. Such sharing, I believe, could help me know our three towns better. I also hope that it will help all of us reflect on how each town shapes us and shapes our work in ministry.

The rejection that Jesus suffers in Nazareth weakens his ministry. Mark says Jesus cannot perform miracles there. He connects this weakness with the lack of faith shown to Jesus in his hometown. Then Jesus repeats an old proverb: "A prophet is not without honour except in his own town and among his relatives."

Prophecy is one of several roles we adopt in the church. I use a list of five words that begin with the letter "p," to remind myself of five different roles of ministry  Those words are pastor, priest, pedagogue, preacher and prophet. Memorizing these "Five P's" helps me remember the wide-range of the church's mission. I hope that briefly running through them will help us all think about our work in the church.

First is pastor. A pastor is a companion to people who are sick, troubled, or mourning the loss of a loved one. The root of the word in Latin means shepherd, which reminds us of the image of Jesus as the shepherd of his flock. Those of us who spend time visiting people in the hospital or helping neighbours during a bad patch are the pastors among us.

Priest refers to the role of conducting rituals such as baptisms, communion, weddings, and funerals. Such rituals connect us to our sacred values of faith, hope and love. While the role of priest can be undertaken by any of us, it is the one of the five in which ordained ministers are most likely to preferred.

Pedagogues are teachers (pedagogue just being a fancy Greek word for teacher.) All of us who have taught Church School classes or organized study groups are part of the ministry of teaching. 

Preachers proclaim the good news of God in Christ and relate our ancient Scriptures to events in our communities today. In a charge like Borderlands, there are several strong voices who are willing to take on this role when we are between ministers or when the minister is away on study leave.

Finally, prophets. Prophets speak against injustice and sin and call a community to return to God's path of love. Prophecy is the role that Jesus said hometowns cannot easily accept from one of their own.

Protestants support the idea of the ministry of all believers, something that I mentioned at Joyce' Nelson's funeral last week. It suggests that all of us in the church are called to be ministers in the five roles -- pastor, priest, pedagogue, preacher and prophet. None of these roles are necessarily easy. But with God's grace, any of us can and do carry them out in different times and places.

Except, Jesus warns us that ministry can be more difficult in one's hometown. He suggests that people who know us best might be the ones least able to accept our authority to preach, heal, or prophecy . . . 

I wonder if Jesus' statement about hometowns is still true today. Hometown does not have the same meaning today that it did in the First Century. Nowadays, most of us move many times in their lives. Because of these moves, "hometown" more likely now refers to where one lives at present rather than the place where one grew up.

Take my own life. I was born in Kingston, Ontario at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River. When I was three years old, my parents moved us to Cornwall 150 km to the east and where I lived for the next 12 years. When I entered Grade 11, we moved again to Belleville, 250 km back to the west. And when I went to university, I moved still further west to Toronto, which is where I have lived for most of my adult life. So which one of these is my hometown? Kingston where I was born? Cornwall where I spent my most formative years? Toronto where I have lived longer than anywhere else? Or Coronach where I now live?

The idea of hometown stability came to my mind when I chatted with Helen Curran on Thursday evening. She told me that she had lived in her little house on Churchill Avenue for almost 60 years, since she married and moved to Coronach from her family's farm near Shaunovan. Not only has Helen not moved in almost 60 years; her children and grandchildren also live in Coronach, which makes her family quite unusual in my experience. 

In my family, a reunion with my four siblings and my mother -- like the one we enjoyed at the end of June -- is a rare achievement since we now live in three different provinces. Of course, other families are even more far-flung, sometimes with family members living on different continents. 

A famous example of the latter is provided by President Barack Obama. When he first ran for President four years ago, I was struck by a family portrait printed in the newspaper from his half-sister's wedding in Hawaii in 2003. At the centre of the picture was Obama's grandmother, originally from Kansas but then living in Honolulu. Beside her was Obama, the child of a Kenyan and an American, his wife Michelle, the descendant of Black slaves who had grown up in Chicago, Obama's half-sister whose father was from Indonesia, and her husband, who grew up in Burlington Ontario with parents who were from China by way of Malaysia. Whew! Now, what hometown would Obama's family say they were from?

Regardless of whether we have a strong sense of hometown, the place where we live shapes our lives and hence also our ministry. Which brings me back to the three towns of Borderlands.

Any observations I have about our towns after one year still seem superficial. Each town appears to be shrinking in size, despite the mine and the power plant. We are isolated from the rest of Saskatchewan with poor roads and services, especially health care. The culture is largely rural, even though many people no longer farm, or at least no longer gain their livelihood exclusively from farming. The strong connections that bind people together are reflected in the large size of most funerals. The beauty of the countryside, the sunshine, and the sharp swings in our weather affect us all, largely in positive ways, I believe. But beyond that, I don't yet have a lot to say about this beautiful place in which we live.

So partly for that reason, I now want to open the floor up for sharing. I hope some of us will be willing to speak to questions like the following: what do you consider to be your hometown? Have you always lived in Rockglen, Fife Lake, or Coronach? If not, when and why did you move here? And what do you believe are some of the elements of our towns that influence your work in our churches? 

The floor is now open . . . 

Thank you all for contributing. I appreciated hearing of your experiences. 

To close, I refer back to our Scripture readings today. Both of our readings -- the one about Jesus in his hometown, and the one from St. Paul -- talk about weakness. The lack of faith of Jesus' neighbours in Nazareth weakens his ability to minister among them. St. Paul talks about his mysterious "thorn in his flesh." But St. Paul also reminds us that in weakness lies God's strength. Paul's insight is one of the cornerstones of Christianity, in my opinion.

Ministry strikes me as both endlessly complex and difficult -- and then in the next instant, as easy and effortless. It moves from difficult to effortless when touched by the grace of God.

We don't need to be wise, strong, or experienced to accept grace. Like Paul, we can be foolish and still accept grace. Like Paul, we can suffer from a "thorn in the flesh" and still accept Grace. Like Paul, we can consider ourselves to be weak in many ways, and still accept grace. 

Paul also reminds us that Jesus' path of faith, hope and love is one that leads to the cross. The power of God's love is revealed in a willingness to die in the face of injustice and sin. In this willingness to die, our illusions, anxieties, and false idols also die. In this willingness to die, grace appears.

Our union with God's Spirit flows from the defeats of life. When, with Grace, this union happens, our ministry flows effortlessly.

Effortless ministry does not mean that it will be "successful." It does not mean that we won't sometimes be rejected by people in our hometown. Nor does it mean that we don't have to pay close attention to our surroundings and the people in our families, churches, neighbourhoods and communities. 

What it does mean is that we can do our work as pastors, priests, preachers, pedagogues and prophets without anxiety. We can undertake our ministry in the realization that God calls us, supports us, and saves us regardless of any resentment  we might receive from the people in our hometown.

Love calls each of us to ministry -- to support one another, to remind ourselves of our sacred values, to proclaim the good news, to teach our tradition, and to speak out against sin and injustice. God supports us in this work in all our hometowns. And it is to God that the glory and honour of our ministry lies

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Campfire stories of fear and faith

Text: Mark 6: 30-34, 45-46, 53-56 (Jesus retreats to quiet places)
Sermon delivered at Camp Woodboia for Chinook Presbytery's Camping Sunday service

When Wendy Allingham asked me lead the service today at the Camp, I thought that  I would find a passage from Mark's Gospel in which Jesus retires to the wilderness to pray. My hope was that such a reading could inspire a reflection on camping. But when I turned to the Lectionary, I saw that today's Gospel selection was already one of those. In the passage we just heard, Jesus twice retreats from the crowds: once with his disciples to find a quiet place, and then later by himself to pray on a mountainside.

This coincidence is perhaps not too surprising given the number of times in Mark's Gospel that Jesus retreats from towns and crowds to pray in lonely places. Today, we find ourselves in one of those remote places, a United Church camp on the edge of the the tiny village of Wood Mountain and near one of least-tamed and most beautiful of Canada's National Parks, Grasslands National Park

This morning, I have a few words about my own experiences in United Church camps, which I hope will spark others' memories of such times and perhaps also inspire plans for future camping experiences at places like Woodboia. Near the end of this reflection, I will open up the floor for sharing around the circle . . .

I imagine that many of us here today are like me and have been strongly affected by church camping experiences. I have two stories to tell from my own experiences: one about a camp I attended when I was 10 years old, and another from a camping trip in 2002 when I was already in mid-life.

As a child, I only went to church camp once. I grew up in Cornwall Ontario, which is on the St. Lawrence River near the border with Quebec. When I was 10, my older brother and I spent a week in Rideau Hill Camp, which is on on the Rideau River about halfway between Ottawa and the St. Lawrence River.

Our experience was not entirely positive. It was an extremely hot week, and during a long hike on roads near the camp, my older brother was one of several campers to succumb to heat stroke. We also were bothered by bug bites, and we didn't love all the religious instruction we got that week.

My brother and I were preachers' kids.  My late father, Rev. James Clare Kellogg, was then the minister at Knox United Church in Cornwall. And such, we were surprised when we seemed to be among the more liberal of the kids in the camp in terms of questions like Sabbath-observance and other moral questions.

Overall, I was pleased with the experience. I was proud that I had thrived physically in the heat, the games, and the swimming. In contrast, my older brother, who was my hero, had often withered. So I think that I allowed myself to feel a little pride at his expense.

Also, the experience of late-night conversations in the cabin with some of the older boys helped me feel more like a "guy among guys" than I had before.

Still, the family consensus was that this United Church camp was not for us, and I never returned.

More important to me was a week-long wilderness canoe trip with 18 adults 10 years ago this summer in Ontario's Algonquin Provincial Park. That canoe trip was organized by the United Church's Five Oaks Retreat Centre, which is the Ontario equivalent to Saskatchewan's Calling Lakes Centre near Fort Qu'Appelle.

10 years ago, I had recently returned to church after decades away, and my minister, Rev. Rivkah Unland of Toronto's Kingston Road United Church, had invited me to go on the canoe trip, one that she had found life-changing the summer before

I was quite nervous about going. I had been told that the canoeing and portaging were physically demanding, which made me worry about my bad back. I worried about my digestion, about heat, about bugs, about storms, and about being in community with 18 strangers for seven days and nights. But I also sensed that this camping experience was exactly what I needed, so off I went.

The Program Director of our week was Mardi Tindal.  At the time, Mardi was a staff member at Five Oaks, while today she is the Moderator of the United Church. Mardi ends her three-year term as Moderator at the General Council meeting next month in Ottawa. I feel lucky that Mardi was one of the leaders on that experience. Her program for the week was based upon a book she had just published called "Soul-Maps: A Guide to the Mid-Life Spirit."

Mardi and I bonded on our very first portage. We had set out from our base camp on a windy lake on a Sunday morning and had paddled for about two hours to get to the other side. To make it from there to the next lake, where we were to camp that night, we had a one-kilometre portage through the woods.

When Mardi and I stopped to rest on our way back for the second load of canoes and packs to take
over the rocky and slippery trail, we agreed that we had never worked harder in our lives. Mardi, like me, was worried about her back and about the other physical rigours of camping. She also pointed out that having made the difficult paddle across the first lake and having lugged all our belongings and canoes to the next one, we were stuck. Even if we wanted to bail out on the rest of the week, we could not. The only way back to our starting point was to complete the rest of the circular course with our 16 other companions. A self-help expression came to mind: the only way out of this trip was through.

In the end, I loved almost every minute of the week, including rain, exhaustion, mosquitoes, swimming in the cold lakes, and snoring companions. The week helped solidify a new understanding of the word "faith," which I had encountered in some of the reading I was doing as a newly returned church member. This understanding sees faith not as belief in incredible things, but as trust: trust in our bodies despite their weaknesses; trust in the earth despite its indifference to us puny humans; trust in community despite the brokenness and pain that we all bring to our relationships; and trust in the God who is the ground of being, life, and love.

The week gave me a crash course in how the culture of the United Church had radically changed since I was a teenager. It seemed less moralistic, more welcoming, and more diverse than I had known as a child.

I was pleased that my back and digestion worked fine; that I felt physically stronger at the end of the week; and that I was able to relax in this instant community of strangers. I returned from the trip confident that I had made the right choice in rejoining the United Church and confident that my journey in the church with fellow broken pilgrims was the one I needed for the rest of my life.

I loved the sharing circles that Mardi led through our week. As we said goodbye, she warmly encouraged me to continue my engagement with the church. I believe that I owe her and the others on that trip a lot.
So there you have it, two stories of my United Church camp experiences.

Being at a camp or on a wilderness trip, I believe, can help remind us of some of more sacred truths: our interconnection with all of life; the importance of beauty; our physical and emotional dependence on others; and our smallness in the face of breadth of the earth, the depth and power of lakes and rivers, and the infinite shining heaven of starry nights. Camping can also help remind us of our greatest need, which is to give and receive love to fellow pilgrims on the journey.

Of course, time at camp does not always lead to such epiphanies; but I imagine that it often does. Deep friendships are forged, life-partnerships sometimes have their start, and new ways of searching for faith are often stumbled upon.

Well, those are some of my reflections for Camp Sunday. And now, I would like to open the floor to anyone else who wants to say a few words about their own camping experiences. Do you remember difficult nights of heat and bug bites that made you pine for home when you were at camp? Did you love camp as a kid? Did you find you future spouse at camp? Have you ever gone on a church camping trip as an adult, and if so, how did you like it? What would like to share?

The floor is now open . . .

Thank you all for contributing. I appreciated hearing of your experiences.

To close, I refer back to our Gospel reading today. At many points in his ministry, Jesus went to a mountainside or to a lonely, deserted place to pray. He used his time away from the crowds to regenerate, to reflect, and to reconnect with his source in the God of Love.

May we also find times of regeneration, reflection and reconnection in the wild beauty of God's earth; and times of faith formation with our brothers and sisters on the road as we camp, paddle, portage, and journey together as on Christ's path of faith, hope and love.

Amen.

Family values

Text: Mark 3 20-35 (Jesus and his family)

In the last two weeks, I've been to three different church meetings. On June 6, I travelled to Saskatoon for a one-day meeting called "Prairie Mosaic: an Intercultural Ministry Event." The day after, Joan Miller and I represented Borderlands in the annual meeting of the Saskatchewan Conference of the United Church of Canada. The annual meeting ended last Sunday with a "Service of Praise" at 3rd Avenue United Church in Saskatoon and where three new ministers were ordained or recognized. Then, this past Thursday I travelled to Swift Current for my first meeting as a member of the Executive of Chinook Presbytery. I have agreed to be the next Secretary of our Presbytery; and my duties will begin as soon as I return from vacation in mid-July.

After one year as an ordained minister here in Borderlands, my curiosity about the current state of the church continues to run high. Participating in these meetings helps to satisfy this curiosity and it also helps me to imagine what might be next for us as a church, a pastoral charge, and as a congregation.

Congregations often call ourselves a family of faith. Given today's reading from Mark about Jesus and his family; given that today is Father's Day; and given some thoughts inspired by the church meetings I attended over the last few weeks, today's sermon is about faith communities seen as families.

Jesus is at odds with his family in the reading from Mark today. His family fears that Jesus is out of his mind, and they want to restrain him. When Jesus is later told that his mother, brothers and sisters have come to the house where he is staying and are asking for him, he does not go to them. Instead, he says that his true mother, brothers and sisters are the people surrounding him: those who do the will of God.

In this instance, Jesus rejects his blood relations in favour of the motley crew of students, friends and sinners who are drawn to him and his healing and teaching. In the face of his family's fears that he is insane, Jesus creates a new family, a family of fellow pilgrims on the journey of faith, hope and love.

Perhaps we are trying to do something similar here in this congregation. Perhaps we are trying to create a new family for ourselves, a motley crew of pilgrims and sinners that supplements or even replaces our families of origin.

For most of us, family occupies a central place. But despite the love shared between parents, children, brothers, sisters and other family members, I imagine many of us here today have experienced pain and conflict in our families. When I was a young man, I might even have wondered if my parents or my siblings were sometimes out of their minds and needed to be restrained! At that time, I was pleased to join with friends and comrades in households and sub-cultures that felt like a new family of choice, a family that in some ways replaced the one in which I had been raised.

But as I have grown older, my original family has become central again. On Monday evening, I fly to Toronto to begin four weeks of vacation, and the first person I will visit will be my mother. Then next weekend, I and my four siblings, our partners and some of my nieces and nephews will gather for an annual family reunion at a little resort about a ninety minute drive east of Toronto. This will be the fifth reunion at which we commemorate our father, who died five years ago on June 27, 2007.

I look forward to the reunion very much even though it involves grief as we continue to mourn the loss of our father. These reunions have an extra charge for me, I believe, since it was in my eulogy for my father at his funeral five years ago that I first declared my own call to ministry. Two months after that funeral, I was taking courses full-time at Emmanuel College. And now here I am five years later delivering the final sermon of my first year as your settled minister.

My own situation reminds me a little of the stories of Jesus and his family in the Gospels -- how one's family of origin can sometimes come into conflict with a chosen family of faith and how at other times the two weave tightly into each other. In my case, it has always seemed to be a bit of both . . .

If church congregations are similar to Jesus and his friends and sometimes function as a substitute family, then what does the current state of our church tell us about our efforts to live in church families of faith, hope and love?

To discuss this question, I look at the three church meetings I attended this past two weeks. I was very glad to be at all three even though there were things about them that I didn't like. One theme running through all three was the continuing decline of the United Church of Canada and the growing secularism of our culture.

At Prairie Mosaic, we confronted the fact that the United Church was founded as an overwhelmingly WASP church 87 years ago, while Canada today becomes less WASP with each passing year.

At the Saskatchewan Conference annual meeting we learned that nine churches closed in our province during the past year. Given that Saskatchewan only contains one million of Canada's 33 million people, I wonder if this fact means that approximately 250 United Church sanctuaries were closed across Canada this past year. If so, that would be a far higher figure than I had previously heard.

Before the Service of Praise last Sunday, I spoke with a member of the large pick-up choir that sang an anthem in that service. I remarked on the beauty and grandeur of 3rd Ave United Church, which is 100 years old and which seats about 1,000 people. She noted that this church and its neighbouring cathedral church, Knox United, which is only five blocks away, are both struggling with small congregations and rising bills. She wondered if fundamentalist churches had something on offer that the United Church does not since several of her children worshipped in such congregations. But she also realized that of her circle of friends, she was the only one who had children who still attended church.

At the Presbytery Executive meeting on Thursday we heard about the closing of yet another United Church -- Grandview United in Moose Jaw -- and we talked about another pastoral charge in our Presbytery that probably should close. It is a church that no longer has a minister, regular worship services, or the ability to pay dues to Presbytery. But despite the moribund state of this charge, the one family still supporting that church cannot yet bear to close it.

Finally, this week my mother pointed me to a article in the Toronto Star newspaper about the closing of Trinity Anglican church in the little town of Colborne Ontario near her childhood home. Colborne is where my mother attended school and church as a girl, and where her mother retired and died. The beautiful Anglican church there was 166 years old, and a fierce fight was waged to keep it open. But the central church office had decided that it can no longer afford to subsidize small and declining congregations.

Beyond the theme of decline, there was the actual experience of the meetings. I agreed with a statement of Marie Wilson, who is one of the three Commissioners on Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission and who gave an hour-long address to the annual meeting about the TRC and its work. She said that as soon as she entered the hall filled with 300 ministry and lay delegates to the annual meeting, she felt right at home.

Wilson is a longtime member of Yellowknife United Church, so she knows and appreciates the warmth and empathy that is usually evident at United Church gatherings. I felt the same warmth when I arrived in Swift Current this past Thursday. I felt honoured to be included as one of the 12 gathered at First United.

Beyond Marie Wilson's remarks at the annual meeting, which I found both informative and moving, I also enjoyed the theme presentations by past Moderator David Guiliano and Rev. Nancy Ferguson; the small table group discussions; and the final worship service where 500 people filled 3rd Avenue United, especially Rev. Guiliano's sermon, and the choir of 50 people, which I joined for that service.

But there was much in the meeting that annoyed or frustrated me. I wish that we had spent less time on presentations, which could have been watched at home on the Internet; less time debating resolutions; less time trying to improve the grammar and wording of resolutions, and so on.

Given how expensive it is to bring 300 ministry and lay delegates from across the province to spend three days together, I would have appreciated more time in worship, in small group sharing, and in open-ended airing of feelings and best practices about the challenges facing our congregations, our church, and our world. I did get inspiration for worship and work here in Borderlands from the annual meeting and the two others I attended. But I wish the meetings had often had a different character than they did.

On the other hand, running a large meeting of a church Conference, Presbytery, or even a single congregation can also present big challenges.

Even crafting worship for one small pastoral charge has been a challenge for me this past year. I welcome the challenge. I feel privileged to have the honour of preaching the good news here each week; and I am grateful for the presence of all of us here and for everyone else who keeps the United Church's ministry alive and well here in Borderlands. At the same time, I am also glad to now have four weeks off in which to reflect upon our first year in our ministry together and to seek inspiration for new ways in which we might be able to worship in and serve our three towns.

To close, I want to hold up an example of a chosen family that truly did inspire me this past week. Perhaps my choice will surprise you: it is the musical group, "The Pickers," whom I heard again on Friday night at the Coronach Health Centre. But I hope you will bear with me as I explain.

Marlene Hvorka invited me to a Father's Day BBQ at the Centre so that I could be a surrogate son to Dan Chornanky, who, like me, has no children of his own. I was glad to be there for many reasons: I enjoy spending time with Dan. I enjoyed the food. I got to meet more members of the families of the residents, including the family of Raymond Nelson, which continues to mourn the recent death of Raymond and Irene's daughter, Gail Aust. And finally, I got to hear The Pickers again.

On Friday evening, the music seemed particularly sweet to me. There was an accordion, a fiddle, three guitars, a piano, and a rotating group of singers. The music they sang reflected the inter-cultural reality of our towns: Irish, French, English, tin-pan alley, and country and western. Although the group is ageing, they were very spirited and lively. They lifted our spirits.

The Pickers clearly love to make music together, which they do in a loose and improvisational style. I am confident that they are also energized by their service to groups like the residents of the health centres.

To my mind, they are a good model of what a faith community can be -- a chosen family of friends who do what they love in service to their community and who provide space for many voices and kinds of music.

When seeking inspiration for worship, service and community-building, I believe that in the future my mind might sometimes drift back to The Pickers. I hope to keep their example -- and their music -- in mind as I start my second year in ministry here in Borderlands after my vacation in July . . .

Today is Father's Day, which is a time to remember the importance of family and the presence of the God who is Love in the heart of any family worthy of that name. We also remember the chosen family of Jesus and his friends who provide a model for us in this family of faith.

My prayer for us as we look forward to another year in ministry is that we will also be inspired by role models like The Pickers: a faithful group who share the load, welcome input from different cultures, sing together loosely and sweetly, and serve their neighbours by reminding them of our deepest and most sacred values.

As this congregation continues to do God's will through the grace of  Christ's Spirit, let us give thanks for all such examples in our midst who show us how to let the good news roll.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

How can we keep from singing?

Text: John 3 1-17 (born from above)

Before worship, I provided the following preamble to the service, which I reproduce here:

"We turn to the lighting of our Christ Candle. But before that, I have a few words about today's sermon, about Trinity Sunday, and about some current events.

So far in my fledgling career as a minister, I believe that my sermons have sometimes suffered from a lack of stories. Stories are a common and effective way to make the message of a sermon more memorable, perhaps stories from everyday life, the life of the preacher, or the life of the community. Like all of us, I am drawn to storylines in movies, in books, and in conversation. It is by telling our stories that we come to understand our own lives. And the Bible contains a wonderful richness of stories. And yet so far in my sermons, I am more prone to write about history than about a story; and to write about ideas rather than narratives.

Trinity Sunday -- which, for some obscure reason, is celebrated in most churches today -- is one where I feel more justified to prepare a teaching sermon than a story-filled sermon. The Trinity is a doctrine or teaching of the church, and today is the only Sunday in the whole church year that is dedicated to a doctrine rather than to a story from the life of Jesus or the life of Israel.

As I rolled these ideas around in my head this week, I wondered what stories might be at the top of mind in our communities this week. Unfortunately, the answer is probably the media reports of three murders in Canada this past week: the murder-suicide of a young woman originally from Assiniboia and her son by her husband, a young man from St. Walbourg Saskatchewan; the lurid murder of a student from China by a man in Montreal; and then just yesterday a third murder in a seemingly random shooting in Toronto's Eaton Centre Mall. In an average week, about 10 Canadians are murdered. But this has not been an average week, and these three crimes stand out for lots of reasons.

My hope is that some good might come from reports of tragic murders and suicides. Many of us have suffered tragic losses in our lives, and perhaps the discussions dominating our media this week might help us continue to work through our own losses. Many of us also live in families dealing with mental illness. And now this week, we have the stories of three very troubled men in the public eye.

On the other hand, I am disturbed by much of the media coverage. The alleged murderer in Montreal clearly craves attention more than anything else and he is doing a brilliant job in getting that attention. But should we give it to him? The world is filled with terrible problems and no end of tragic deaths. So I question why some violent and tragic deaths are considered more newsworthy than others.

I believe that a different preacher would be able to weave these three terrible stories into a sermon based on our Gospel reading today. But I did not feel up to that challenge. By Thursday, I had already drafted a sermon on the Trinity for the monthly service at Rolling Hills Lodge, which seemed to work OK, and it is a version of that sermon that I will offer today.

But having now mentioned these three heavily reported murder cases in Canada this week, I want to acknowledge our wishes, hopes and prayers inspired by these cases as we prepare for worship . . .

Today, we will pray that the families of the victims receive the community and spiritual support they need to wrestle with their terrible and painful losses. We will pray that all of us who have been horrified by the reports of these crimes or thrown back into our own grief by them will feel the presence of God's Spirit supporting and comforting us. Finally, we will pray that better systems for identifying and treating people with terrible psychological wounds might be developed . . .

So as I light our candle today, I imagine that its light could represent the Spirit of Christ which guides all the many victims of violent and painful deaths home to God's Love from which we have all come. So be it. Amen."

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Where do our ideas about God come from? And why do these ideas sometimes sound so strange?

In doing research on Trinity Sunday, I learned that many congregations around the world recite a 5th Century Creed called the Athanasian Creed today.

Here is a bit of that Creed: "We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the Persons; nor dividing the Essence. For there is one Person of the Father; another of the Son; and another of the Holy Spirit. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, is all one; the Glory equal, the Majesty co-eternal. Such as the Father is; such is the Son; and such is the Holy Spirit."

That was just the first 75 of the 600 words of this long creed. I am reminded of a song from the musical "My Fair Lady" which says, "Words, words words! I'm so sick of words. Don't talk of love, show me!"

I prefer the simpler and shorter United Church Creed written in the 1960s. In one sentence it describes the Trinity as follows:

"We believe in God: who has created and is creating, who has come in Jesus, the Word made flesh, to reconcile and make new, and who works in us and others by the Spirit." It might not be as impressive as the Athanasian Creed, but I find it more useful.

The doctrine of the Trinity is not found in the Bible, though some passages in the Bible contain hints that might lead to it. Take, for instance, today's Gospel reading. In it, Jesus tells Nicodemus about a second birth, a birth from above that is born of water and the Spirit. In this passage, Jesus as the Son of God tells us how God gives us new life through the power of the Spirit in the many baptisms of life. The passage, which is one of the most important and best loved passages in all of Bible, mentions all three aspects of God.

Despite such hints, the doctrine of the Trinity does not come from the Bible. Rather it comes from the worship life of the first Christians. They had experienced Jesus risen from the dead. As devout Jews, these first followers of Christ believed in One God. Yet they also found themselves worshipping Christ as God. So if Christ was God, and his Father was God, were there two Gods or still only one? And what about the the Holy Spirit, whom God sent on Pentecost, and who gave them power to worship and serve?

It was their experience of worshipping Jesus as God through the power of the Spirit that led early Christians to think of God as both One and Three at the same time. The experiences of new life and worship came first. The fancy words came later.

The same is true for us. We don't believe in God because of ancient creeds. Nor do we believe in God just because of the stories in the Bible. We believe in God because of our life experiences: experiences of brokenness followed by new life; experiences of love; even experiences of loss and grief. When, with grace, we remember our deepest values, we are aware of how much in life we hold sacred. And from the heart of experiences of the sacred -- within, between and around us -- we develop our image of God.

Our sacred moments might include the pure joy of being physically alive. They might be experiences of working with others to try and make the world a better place. They might be experiences of falling in love, getting married and raising children. And as for the first Christians, these sacred moments can be seen by us from different angles.

Some of these moments are internal: quiet prayer; walking alone on a wooded trail; or reading an inspiring book. Some of them are communal, such as joining our voices in song in church. Still others might feel cosmic: being aware of how vast and intricate the universe and the web of life are within which we live and move and have our being.

And so as Christians, we both gratefully accept the stunning vision of our Jewish brothers and sisters that God is One and Almighty; and we also experience new life in Christ through the power of the Spirit. Together, these insights lead us to understand the Sacred, the Divine, or God as a unity within diversity; a unity that might best be described as a One in Three, or a Trinity.

Here is yet another way to speak about the Trinity from a 2006 United Church statement of faith. It is called "A Song of Faith," and it begins:

"God is Holy Mystery, beyond complete knowledge, above perfect description. Yet, in love, the one eternal God seeks relationship . . . With the Church through the ages, we speak of God as one and three: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We also speak of God as Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer; God, Christ, and Spirit; Mother, Friend, and Comforter; Source of Life, Living Word, and Bond of Love; and in other ways that speak faithfully of the One on whom our hearts rely . . . We witness to Holy Mystery that is Wholly Love."

I recommend the entire "A Song of Faith." I like the fact that it uses the metaphor of song as both the source of our beliefs and as a way to express our beliefs.

We often experience the sacred when we sing together. Sacred songs lead us to feel what we believe; and such feelings are more important to us than our attempts to articulate the Holy Mystery, which we name as God.

"A Song of Faith" several times repeats the line: "And so we cannot keep from singing." This refrain is taken from the great 19th Century American Hymn, "My Life Flows On," which we will sing at the end of this sermon.

Now of course, not every hymn sung in church will connect us to the sacred, any more than will every moment with our children, every moment volunteering at a food bank, or every walk in the woods. But we know that by God's grace, sacred moments occur again and again. In those moments, we are able to remember that our lives are supported by God, the Holy One and the Holy Three: and this support comes from the God who is within, between, and beneath us.

Our Gospel reading from John today reminds me of a African-American spiritual that I once sang in a choir in Toronto. This spiritual is called Witness, and it includes the following lines:

"Nicodemus was a man who desired to know how a man can be born when he is old. Christ told Nicodemus as a friend, “Man, you must be born again." He said, marvel not, be wise, repent, believe and be baptized.” Yet another song of faith.

All of us here today have gone through many baptisms by God's Holy Spirit. This is one of the reasons we are confident that we have come from God's Love, we live by the power of God's Love, and we will return to God's Love.

God so loved the world that he gave his only son so that the world might be saved, and so that you and I might be saved as well.

And so we cannot keep from singing.

Amen.