"On War, Pandemics, and Lament" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge

Sunday October 30, 2022 – 21^st Sunday After Pentecost

 

 

First Scripture Reading:

Habakkuk 1:1-4

 

First Reflection

This is the lament of the prophet Habakkuk.  Habakkuk was a prophet around the time of the exile to Babylon.  He had seen some horrible things happening in the time and the place where he lived.

 

A generation before Habakkuk, the Assyrian empire had overtaken the northern kingdom of Israel, and Jerusalem and the rest of the southern kingdom of Judah had been filled with refugees fleeing that fighting.  And now it was the Babylonian empire who was knocking on their door.

 

Judah didn’t fall peacefully – they fought back against the empire, but the empire was stronger.  Violence was followed by a siege of the city of Jerusalem, which was followed by more violence, which was followed by the destruction of Jerusalem, including the temple which was believed to be the home of God, which was followed by exile to a foreign land.

 

And surrounded by all of this devastation – violence and death and starvation and loss of home and loss of family and loss of everything that is familiar – surrounded by all of this, Habakkuk pours his heart out to God.

 

How long, O God?

How long will you ignore my cries for help?

How long will this violence continue?

How long will injustice and oppression be the norm?

How long will wickedness hold more power than goodness?

 

Lament is powerful.  When we lament, we pour our hearts out to God.  When we lament, we are free to complain, we are free to be sad, we are free to be angry with God.  And yet lament is an act of deep faith – if we didn’t think that anyone was listening to our lament, what would be the point?  When we lament, when we weep for the state of the world, we trust that God weeps alongside us.

 

Many of us have been living through a very difficult couple of years for a number of reasons.  I was talking with a friend a couple of weeks ago about trauma, and the collective trauma that we, as a society, have faced with this pandemic.  You may have seen the same meme circulating as I have – it says something along the lines of, “We’re not all in the same boat together, but we are all facing the same storm.”

Each one of us has experienced the pandemic differently, and so many people have been traumatized by it in different ways.  Maybe your experience was one of loneliness and isolation, cut off from your friends and family.  Maybe you lost a loved one in the middle of a lockdown and weren’t able to gather together to grieve properly.  Maybe you were in hospital and weren’t able to have your family visit you; or maybe a loved one was in hospital and you weren’t able to visit.  Maybe you were working in health care, or another essential service, and your experience has been one of stress and burnout.  Maybe you were trying to navigate the balance between working from home while supervising the online schooling of your children who were just not able to focus.  Whatever your experience of the pandemic, there is so much trauma in our world today as a result of it.

 

And the pandemic isn’t the only reason to lament.  Systemic racism that is embedded into our way of being has been exposed over the past decade or so.  We, as a country, have been lamenting our colonial past as the unmarked graves of Indigenous children who died because of colonization were brought to public attention.  Climate change continues to cause anxiety, especially in younger generations who wonder what sort of a world they are going to be living in, decades from now.  Inflation and increased costs for food and shelter are resulting in so many hungry people, and so many people with no housing or precarious housing.  Homophobia and transphobia continue to be a thing that threatens the wholeness and wellness of so many people.  War rages on in Ukraine.

 

There is so much that we can lament in the world today.

 

If you were to write your own lament, what might it sound like?  How would you pour your heart out to God?

 

How long, O God?

How much longer until healing will be stronger than the trauma of the pandemic?

How much longer will racism and colonialism infect the way that we live as a society?

How much longer will this beautiful planet that you created continue to burn?

How much longer will there be hungry people in the world?

How much longer will wars rage,

            and will people be scared of nuclear threats?

How long, O God?

 

 

Second Scripture Reading:

Habakkuk 2:1-4

 

Second Reflection

The second half of our reading today begins again with Habakkuk, the prophet.  Habakkuk declares that he is going to keep watch to see how God responds to his complaint.  He is going to station himself on the city walls without resting until he hears an answer from God.

 

And God does answer him; but the funny thing, if you listen carefully to God’s answer, is that it is almost a non-answer.  God describes what the answer is going to be like.  The answer is going to be so plain that even someone running past it would be able to read it.  The answer may feel delayed, but it is trustworthy and it will come.  The answer is God’s dream, God’s vision for the time that is coming.

 

But what is this vision?  In other places, the vision is fleshed out, but here it is left up to our prophetic imagination.  We are invited to join Habakkuk and the other prophets to let God’s vision be realized through us.

 

Now this can be frustrating to anyone who likes clear descriptions and concrete answers; but it is also a beautiful response in its open-endedness.  Just as the specifics of Habakkuk’s lament – war and siege and exile – are different than the specifics of our lament, so too can the specifics of God’s response to Habakkuk be different than God’s response to our lament.  For Habakkuk and the people of Ancient Jerusalem, even though it took 70 years, in time the people did eventually return from exile… or at least their descendants did… and the city and the temple were re-built.

 

And what might God’s vision for our time be?  A world without racism and homophobia and transphobia?  A world where gender-based violence and discrimination is no longer a thing?  A world where there is no such thing as a nuclear threat, and where people have forgotten what a war is?  A world where resources are shared fairly so no one ever goes to bed hungry?  A world where every single person is valued for who they are rather than for what they contribute?  A world where every member of the community of creation, living and non-living things alike, are able to fully be what they were created to be?

 

For God does have a vision for the appointed time; and God’s vision is trustworthy, and God’s vision is good – is better than anything we could ever imagine.

 

And we are called to join our imagination with God’s imagination until this vision becomes a reality, even if it doesn’t happen in our generation but for some generation in the future.  We are called to trust in this vision.  We are called to hope.  We are called to live our lives today as though we know that this vision is going to come to pass.  And may God’s Holy Spirit fan the flame of hope within us so that we can trust, with our whole lives, that the time is coming.  Amen.

 

 

 

 

(This was a good opportunity to sing one of my favourite hymns this week - one that is more familiar in the Lutheran Church where I used to play the piano than it is in most United Churches:  If You Will Trust in God to Guide You.)

"Waiting for the Rain" (sermon)

Sunday October 23, 2022

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge

Scripture Reading:  Joel 2:23-32

 

 

The book of Joel is a short little book – only three chapters long, tucked into the middle of the prophets.  I’ve heard it called a “Table of Contents Book” because most people need to look it up in the table of contents in the bible in order to be able to find it – I know that I had to this week!

 

And we don’t know very much about Joel beyond his name and his father’s name – we don’t even know when he was living.  Most prophets include some hints that let us guess when they were alive – a reference to who was king of Israel or Judah, a reference to what was happening in the world.  But Joel is missing any of these hints that might let us put his words into context.

 

He is writing about time of drought, a time when locusts swarmed over the land and devoured anything green, a time of famine and hunger.  And into the midst of that, God promises that a time will come when abundant rain will pour down, a time when the threshing floors will be full of grain, a time when the storage vats will be overflowing with all of the wine and olive oil that is produced, a time when the people will have more than enough to eat.

 

If you look closely at the grammar of this passage though, this time of plenty is all still in the future; which makes me think that Joel is prophesying in the middle of the drought and famine.  The people have to trust that a time will come when the rain will fall, a time will come when there will be enough for everyone to eat.

 

If you get my mid-week e-mails, this week I used a phrase to describe hope – “Hope is only possible when everything is hopeless” (and I really wish that I could track down the source of that quote that I came across years ago).  When things are good – when the famine is over and there is enough to eat – this isn’t when we need hope.  Hope doesn’t hold any meaning when there is nothing to hope for.  Instead, it is in the middle of the famine when everything seems to be hopeless – this is when hope comes in to play – this is when hope means trusting that the famine will eventually end and a time of plenty will come.

 

Reading through Joel this week, I was thinking about the time that I spent in Tanzania.  Here in Canada, our seasons are defined by the temperature and by the length of day; but on the equator the length of day stays the same throughout the year, and the temperature also stays fairly consistent from month to month.  There are seasons, however, but they are defined by the rains.  In the part of Tanzania where I lived, there were two rainy seasons and two dry seasons each year.  The long dry season usually lasted from mid- to late-May right through to the beginning of September.  In those months, not a single drop of rain falls.  The water level gradually drops in rivers and in streams.  The dirt dries out into powdery dust that gets in your nose, in your hair, in your clothes.  The grass dries out and turns brown.

 

And yet every year, the people who live there trust that the rains will arrive with September.  In August each year, people start burning the grass in the fields and on the hillside to clear away the roots so that when the rain starts to fall, the new grass will be able to spring up easily.  Every year in late August, people start planting bean seed and peas and spinach so that when the rain starts to fall, the seeds will already be in the ground.

 

In the midst of the dryness and dust, people trust that the rains will come, and so they live their lives trusting in the rain.

 

This is a powerful testimony to hope – trusting in something that you can’t see yet – but the metaphor does break down.  In that corner of Tanzania, we know the timeline for the rains.  We know that they are going to begin in September each year.  But God’s promises don’t usually come with a timeline.  God promises that a time of abundance will follow a time of famine, but doesn’t tell us when.  And yet we are called to live as though we expect the abundance and feasting to be any day now.

 

And it’s hard.  It’s hard to sustain hope through the drought, through the famine, when you don’t know when it is going to end.

 

And yet we are an Easter people.  We aren’t a Good Friday people – we are an Easter people.  We know that resurrection is always just around the corner.

 

And I think that is what passages like the one we read today from Joel remind us of.  No matter what Good Friday we might be going through right now – the Good Friday of grief, the Good Friday of fear, the Good Friday of loneliness, the Good Friday of oppression, the Good Friday of pain, the Good Friday of addictions or illness or anxiety or depression or or or…  No matter what Good Friday you are travelling through right now, Easter is coming.  No Good Friday lasts forever; and the Easter that is coming will be even better than a little chocolate bar for everyone. (Note:  this refers back to the Story for All Ages – see below.)  It is worth waiting for!

 

And that is hope.  Hope means trusting that Easter is just around the corner, even though we can’t see it yet.  Hope means trusting that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, even while we are still in total darkness.  Hope is only possible – hope is only a thing when everything feels hopeless.

 

And that is my prayer for all of us – that the Holy Spirit might breathe hope into our Good Friday lives – that seeds might be planted even when the rain hasn’t started to fall yet – that our voices might join the song of the birds who sing before the sun has risen, encouraging the world to hold on just a little longer because the dawn is coming, because the rains are coming, because Easter is almost here!  Amen.

 

 

Story for All Ages:

Cards were set up and we took turns turning over a card

looking for the Queen of Hearts.

A surprise was promised once someone found the right card.

The surprise was a chocolate bar for everyone!

If you can trust me, that I haven’t removed the Queen from

the deck (even though we had to wait a bit before she was found),

how much more can we trust God and trust in God’s promises,

even when we have to wait a bit for them to come true!

"A Covid Thanksgiving Letter" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge

Sunday October 9, 2022 – Thanksgiving Weekend

Scripture Reading:  Philippians 4:4-9

 

[Note:  Last Wednesday, I tested positive for Covid-19, so I wasn’t able to be in-person at church today. Session (the committee that oversees the spiritual life of the congregation) stepped in and implemented the plan we made 2 years ago, so that Session members led worship at each church using the service that I had prepared.  I modified my reflection into a letter from me to the church, so that my words wouldn’t sound too strange coming from someone else’s voice.]

 

 

 

Dear Church,

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

I was thinking this week, that this is my fifth Thanksgiving at Two Rivers, and our third Thanksgiving in the season of Covid-tide.  I looked back in my computer to see what I preached about 3 Thanksgivings ago, back in 2019, and discovered that we had read the same passage from Philippians that we heard today.  And when I read through that sermon from 3 years ago, I also realized that my message 3 years ago was the same message that I am hearing in these verses this year; but I am feeling them in a much deeper way than I did back in 2019.

 

The Apostle Paul is writing this letter to the Philippians – to the church in the city of Philippi – from prison.  We don’t know exactly when or where in his life this was, but we do know that Paul was thrown into jail several times for sharing the message of Jesus Christ, crucified and risen.  This is a counter-cultural message that undermines authority and tends to make the people in charge feel uncomfortable – for if Jesus Christ has authority over our lives, and if this same Jesus has the ability to overturn even death, then what does it say about the human leaders in the world?

 

Anyways, preaching about Jesus frequently landed Paul in prison, and from one of his stays in prison, he writes a short letter – at least short by Paul’s standards – he writes a short letter to the church in Philippi, a church that he had founded in his travels throughout the Mediterranean.  It is possible that he is writing this from his final imprisonment in Rome – an imprisonment that ended with Paul’s execution.

 

Paul’s freedom is restricted.  His physical comfort is affected.  His very life is in peril.  And yet he can still write the beautiful words that we heard this morning.  “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say Rejoice!”  “Do not worry about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”  And he offers them a beautiful blessing:  “and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

 

How could Paul, in prison, write such beautiful words of peace and hope and comfort and joy?

 

When I think back on the past three years, I think about everything that has changed since that last time I wrote about this passage.

 

We are 2 ½ years into a global pandemic, with the World Health Organization reporting over 6.5 Million confirmed deaths from Covid-19 and over 600 Million confirmed cases.

 

The pandemic has revealed the depths of systemic racism in our society.

 

Unmarked burials have been revealed on the grounds of former Residential Schools across this country, and we have been forced to contend with our colonial history as a country and as a church.

 

Families have been separated.

 

The health care system is under increasing strain with each month that passes.

 

Students have been impacted in ways that likely won’t be fully known for decades.

 

Workers in every field are dealing with stress and burnout like never before.

 

And don’t even get me started on the “Supply Chain Issues!”

 

And this weekend we come to Thanksgiving.  How can we possibly be expected to be thankful in a time like this?  What do we possibly have to be thankful for, when the world seems to be falling to pieces around us?

 

And then I turn to Paul’s words to the Philippians.  Like I said, they hit me on a much deeper level than they did 3 years ago.

 

As I write these words, I am sitting at home, cat on my lap, because I tested positive for Covid this week.

 

I had to cancel a house guest who was planning to visit from Ontario this weekend.

 

I am not able to be with all of you today, to celebrate Thanksgiving with you.

 

There have been many times in the past 2 ½ years that I have been teetering close to burnout.

 

I, along with all of us in this church, have lost some very dear friends in the past 3 years.

 

This is a very challenging time for us to be living through; and even though I’m not in jail the way that Paul was, I think that maybe this year I have a bit of a deeper understanding of just how profound his words to the Philippians are.

 

It’s one thing to rejoice and give thanks and be filled with peace when life is good and everything is sunshine and rainbows and unicorns.  It’s another matter entirely to rejoice and give thanks and be filled with peace when life keeps throwing us challenge after challenge after challenge.

 

So where does all of that leave us, this Thanksgiving of 2022?

 

3 years ago, I concluded that giving thanks was a choice – an active choice that we make.  I am going to choose to give thanks rather than letting myself fall into despair.

 

Today, I still think that we are all given a choice to be thankful or not.  But I think that maybe thankfulness is a gift given to us by the Holy Spirit.  By ourselves, when life is difficult, it is hard – maybe even impossible – to give thanks.  But the Holy Spirit, working in us, allows us to choose thankfulness even when the obstacles seem impossible to overcome.

 

This weekend, I give thanks for vaccines and for a good immune system.

 

I give thanks for all of the offers of help that flooded into my phone and inbox and Facebook when I let people know that I had Covid.

 

I give thanks for my cats who are quite content to sit on my lap this week as I rest my eyes and blow my nose.

 

I give thanks for the changing colours of the leaves outside my window that I saw when I slowed down enough to notice them.

 

I give thanks for the smell of the dead leaves on the ground, and I give thanks that Covid hasn’t taken away my ability to smell them.

 

I give thanks for the Divine Love that is always surrounding me, holding me close, even when I am tempted to collapse inward and feel sorry for myself.

 

And I give thanks for all of you, dear church.  I give thanks for your ministry of loving the world; and I pray that the Holy Spirit fills your heart with the gift of thanksgiving, today and every day.

 

I love you all, and I can’t wait to see you again.

 

And may God bless you, and those you love, today and always.

Rev. Kate.

 

 

 

This Invitation is for Everyone

This is the invitation to communion from Sunday October 2, 2022 - Worldwide Communion Sunday, as well as a special service at Two Rivers Pastoral Charge to celebrate our journey as an Affirming Community of Faith.  (It probably isn't exactly as I spoke it, and it was probably different at each service - this is a part of the service that I never script out ahead of time - but you should get the gist of the invitation.)

 

This invitation is for everyone.

If you are queer, if you are straight,
If you are cis-gender, if you are transgender,
This invitation is for everyone.

If you are male, if you are female,
If you are non-binary, if you are gender-fluid,
This invitation is for everyone.

If you are young, if you are old,
If you are somewhere in-between,
This invitation is for everyone.

If you are able-bodied,
If you are differently-abled,
This invitation is for everyone.

If this is your first time here,
If you are here every Sunday,
This invitation is for everyone.

If you are joining us virtually,
If you are here in-person,
This invitation is for everyone.

This table doesn't belong to this church,
Or to the United Church of Canada -
This table belongs to Christ,
And Christ invites everyone to join the feast!

This invitation is for everyone.

This invitation is for you,
You beautiful
and beloved
Child
of
God.

Screenshot from the Invitation to Communion

"Our Affirming Journey" (sermon)

On Sunday October 2, Worldwide Communion Sunday, Two Rivers Pastoral Charge had a special worship service (at both Long Reach United Church and Westfield United Church) where we celebrated being an Affirming Community of Faith and reminded ourselves that being Affirming is a journey rather than a destination.

 

The sermon/reflection was offered by Ross Sherwood – chair of the TRPC Official Board, our Mission & Service Enthusiast, one of our regular camerapersons for worship livestreaming, and a member of the Fundy St. Lawrence Dawning Waters Region Affirming Committee. He has given me permission to share his reflection here. These are his very powerful words.

 

 

Scripture Reading:  1 Corinthians 12:12-27

 

 

Good morning! First I would like to introduce Joel McElhinney, my partner, who will be accompanying me with some background music during the reflection. Thank you Joel!

 

Joel selected three pieces of music to share during the reflection. “Oceans” by Hillsong speaks of how we need to always lean to God, to keep above the waves from drowning and that becoming Affirming is to move to uncharted waters where God is calling us to the waters of acceptance, to always trust without borders. “It is Well” by Kristen DeMarco speaks of the seas that are stirred in our lives which with God can be calmed and that the mountains in front of us can be the hatred and intolerance that some people foster but through it all, with our eyes focussed on God, It is Well. And “Your Great Name” by Natalie Grant…well this song can speak so much but to summarize it, what I can is “GOD IS LOVE!”

 

I am sharing a reflection I created, with a few thoughts from 3 friends who I hold close to my heart, for last spring’s Fundy St. Lawrence Dawning Waters Regional Annual meeting.

 

May the words of my mouth and meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight.

 

A while back I was sitting reading an article on line ‘Welcoming, but not affirming’: being gay and Christian posted August 2016. (This was shortly after Two Rivers Pastoral Charge, our church, began a year long process of planting seeds, asking questions, sharing and working towards understanding just what it means to becoming ‘Affirming’.) This article is a conversation back and forth from the perspectives of a Gay Christian and the leader of a Pentecostal Charismatic church. I won’t get into the whole article but I would like to share some of the comments from the leader and the Gay Christian.

 

Leader: “At the moment our position is that if you’re going to volunteer here that we would hold to a fairly orthodox position of scripture…so yeah, we do have a line, and that line is drawn to just being a member of the church but because you are gay, you will not be able to take part in any leadership positions.”

 

Gay Christian: “Imagine, I not allowed to take up the offering! I was simply looking to be actively involved and become a member of the church…BUT because I am gay that was sufficient for (them) to turn around and say no. I thought to myself “That’s just not right”.

 

Leader: Being part of a Christian community is…The body, everyone’s got a part and a role to play, “Oh, but now you say you’re gay, you can’t do that anymore”.

 

Gay Christian: “I grew up in church, understanding that God created me and loved me for who I am BUT when I shared with my church that I am in a same sex relationship, I was told that I had to step away from my duties at the church, forcing me to leave, feeling so sad because for me it was my space for belonging. All of my formation happened at church. That’s just not right”.

 

Gay Christian: “There really is no self-respect in staying inside a community that holds up a banner saying ‘welcome home’, while simultaneously rejecting your very presence by silence. The silence was like thunder to me”.

 

Imagine being a part of a church that does not accept you for who God created you to be!!!!

 

Affirming Ministries seek to go beyond issues of gender diversity and sexual orientation to work for justice and inclusion for all people. In June of 2017, I am so very proud to say that we, Two Rivers Pastoral Charge, voted unanimously in favor of becoming an Affirming Community!

 

Through a process of discernment and reflection, Affirming Ministries discover what it means for them to be inclusive and justice-seeking. They prepare a statement of faith and vision that sets out their ongoing commitment to work for justice on issues of gender diversity and sexual orientation within their congregation, the wider church, and their community, and to support and participate in the Affirming Ministry Program.

 

Shortly after becoming an Affirming Community, Two Rivers created and adopted our Inclusivity Statement.

We the people of Two Rivers Pastoral Charge

publicly declare our commitment to create a

community that will celebrate the blessings of and

the support of one another in our diverse life

experiences; a community where all people are

welcome regardless of age, gender, race, sexual

orientation, gender identity, differing abilities,

ethnic background, life experiences, generational

culture, economic circumstances and others we

have yet to discern.

 

As such we will continually seek to identify and

dismantle barriers that hinder the participation and

inclusion of marginalized groups and individuals.

 

All persons are welcome to take part in every aspect

of church life including memberships, leadership,

celebrating life passages and marriage.

 

We celebrate the richness that diversity brings to

our church, even as it challenges us. We pray for

God’s spirit to guide us as we work for

reconciliation and justice for all persons in both

church and society.

 

BUT…it doesn’t stop there. It doesn’t mean “okay, that’s done!! (Sharing from Open Hearts: A Resource for Affirming Ministries in The United Church of Canada). “It is more than offering a welcome. Being an Affirming Ministry is not merely about welcoming gay, lesbian, and transgender people. Words like welcoming or inclusion suggest those on the inside have the power to choose to accept those on the outside. This makes it sound like an act of charity to welcome those who are different or marginalized. However, it is not our place to welcome anyone because church is not a private club and we are not the gatekeepers. As soon as one new person comes through the doors, the community becomes a ‘new’ community”.

 

I reached out to some members of Two Rivers to ask their thoughts on what it feels like to be an Affirming Church? What has changed? And, what are the challenges?

 

Bette Ashley shares… “ I believe it has brought our three congregations closer together. I think we are living out what God wants us to be. More welcoming, more understanding and to show love to all people.

Two Rivers has always been welcoming churches. I remember the first time I walked through the door at Summerville, I felt this is so right! The education during our time of becoming an Affirming congregation was well done, gave everyone valuable information and freedom of voting. 

As Jesus said ‘love one another as I have loved you’.”

 

Chris Patstone shares… “I’ve related it a lot to my call to share the good news about God, Jesus and faith. I like to think that myself, my faith and my church function and live to help bring others closer to God, closer to their own faith.  To help others discover that God is with us and God loves us and God is Love! This House of God (TRPC), is love, is support, is caring, is holy… and thanks to being Affirming, others are discovering this as well. 

Some of our church’s old teachings and practises raised barriers between people and the love of God. Our Church (us the people) being Affirming, in action and word, serves to lower barriers between people and God.  It can make the road easier, or even possible, for others to discover the life-changing love of God. After all, isn’t this what the church is suppose do, bringing people closer to God.

I get emotional when I hear the stories from others, about when they see the signs of welcome and affirmation on our website or outside our churches.  How, for some, who in the past have felt unwelcome or unloved by churches; now know with certainty, that this house of God welcomes, supports and loves them!  

God loves us no matter who we love he just wants us to love!!!   As Jesus reminds us, the most important of all commandments is to love God and love each other!”

 

Josie Pike shares… “I think we are now a much more 'open' pastoral charge....I believe we voted to become an affirming pastoral charge thinking that we were reaching out to those who do not sit in our pews (via our signage).....and indeed we were...but...

 

I have noticed so many changes 'within' our charge. We are more open and welcoming with ourselves.....many people have since shared their own stories....stories that perhaps they were not sure (before affirming) would be heard without being judged .  And how else do people become closer, by trusting enough to confide. 

 

I feel strongly that when stories are shared that there is acceptance.....of the story itself…..of the feelings of the storyteller.....of the subjects of the story.

 

And love.....there has always been love in our pastoral charge but I feel now that it has grown even bigger, even stronger....and we are loving the love that has changed us and embraced us . 

 

I believe that by becoming an affirming charge we have given ourselves a voice.....a quietly strong one that we can draw upon when we find ourselves in social situations where others question what the rainbow signage at each of our churches means (I had an opportunity to do just that recently...and I believe I did it with love).

 

The hard, perhaps challenging, part for me personally, is when I encounter people who do not think like I do.....like when 'jokes' about others are made....or when derogatory names are used to describe .......I have always avoided confrontation at all costs and kept quiet....but since our process of becoming affirming, I believe I have found my voice, because being quiet means I agree with what is being said, doesn't it? I may not always have the courage to speak up but I am working on it because it's important to me.....and I have my pastoral charge behind me”.

 

1 Corinthians 12:12 “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.” We are all created in God’s image, God created each of us for who we are! No matter our age, race, sexual orientation, gender identity, our differing abilities, ethnic background, life experiences or generational culture. God loves us for who we are…God does not judge nor does he expect us to judge! For to know God is to know love!

 

As Rev. Kate shared during a recent reflection and I quote “being Affirming is a journey, not a destination. It’s not just something Two Rivers did back in 2017 – it is something that is an ongoing commitment to be willing to have our barriers broken down. It isn’t always going to be easy – as our inclusivity statement reads, ‘we celebrate the richness that diversity brings to our church even as it challenges us’. There is no tension between the celebration and the challenge. God is always pushing us beyond our comfort zone, pushing us into a broader understanding of love and acceptance. For God’s love isn’t just for the ‘in-crowd’. God’s love is for everyone; and who are we to stand in God’s way?”

 

As a man of faith who is gay, I feel so very blessed to call Two Rivers Pastoral Charge, within the Region of Fundy St. Lawrence Dawning Waters under the umbrella of the United Church of Canada…MY CHURCH…MY HOME…MY FAMILY!!!

 

Amen!

 

Since the time I wrote this reflection, I have come to learn that these churches also exist in the United Church of Canada. Just because our National Church is Affirming does not mean that ALL United Churches are following under this banner!!! In fact, there are many churches, in many denominations, that are still practicing Conversion Therapy today and even though the federal government has made it “against the law”. WE HAVE  LONG WAY TO GO!!! BUT WE MUST ALWAYS REMEMBER…GOD IS LOVE…GOD ASKS US TO LOVE UNCONDITIONALLY…WE ARE NEVER ALONE…THANKS BE TO GOD!

 

Amen and Amen!!!

 

 

 

A screenshot from the  worship

livestream at Westfield United Church

with Ross Sherwood preaching

and Joel McElhinney on piano