Imagine

The following is adapted from a sermon I preached at Delhi United Church for Erie Presbytery on October 21 and again on October 28 at Appleby United Church in Burlington.  It is based on two pieces of scripture: Luke 24:13-31 and a Letter to the Hebrews 11:32-12:3.

Imagine you and a friend walking to church one day and you come across someone who is also on the way to the to church.  The three of you chat about the weather, the results of yesterday’s game, the price of gas, and then you say, “Can you believe what’s happening with these remits and how everything is going to change on January 1?!”  Your friend totally agrees with you and you also talk about how the church is changing so fast and that people aren’t coming to church and how much churches are struggling.   The person you met along the way looks at you both blankly.  “The church is changing? We’re struggling?  What’s a remit?"

For those who are active participants in the United Church, for three years we have lived with words like remits, three courts, national assessments, and for many more years, words like stewardship, amalgamation, ecumenism.  These words have been a part of the United church as it determines its future, as it strives to continue being the gospel, the good news, of Christ in today’s world.  Some will say that what we’ve been doing has absolutely nothing to do with the gospel, but others have hope that it’s actually making room for it.  

So to this person you’ve met on the road, who has no idea what you’re talking about, you ask, “Are you the only one in the United Church who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?”  (By now, you may have noticed the similarities to the resurrection story from the gospel of Luke of the disciples on the way to Emmaus: Luke 24:13-31) You then you proceed to tell this person about the remits, about churches closing, about hockey on Sunday mornings, about the aging of the church, fewer people in the pews, scarcity of money and volunteers and ministers, and the fear that permeates the church.  And you tell this with an urgency in your voice and a gripping of your heart because you share in that fear.This person then looks at you and your friend with sympathy and proceeds to tell you the good news of scripture that you are missing: loving your neighbour, loving the stranger, liberation, abundance, the questions and the struggle, inclusion and acceptance, healing, forgiveness, mercy, justice, reminding both of you that through every season, through times of trouble and fear, in times of grief and loss, this good news is always with us, waiting to enter into our lives, waiting for us to open up and let go, surrender.  

This is a lot for you and your friend to absorb.  You’re very silent for the remainder of the walk.  As you all arrive at the church, you notice that there’s a breakfast and that people are sitting and sharing a meal together, so you invite this stranger to sit with you.  I think you can guess what happens next.  Bread is broken.  Pancakes are served.  Coffee is drunk in abundance.  Children finish quickly and run around the tables.  There is conversation and laughter and stories shared.  

Then, suddenly, your eyes are opened.  You’re able to see past the remits, the motions, beyond the reports and budgets.  Here it is.  God’s kingdom.  In the breaking of bread, you experience the good news, you’re able to let go and open up to Christ.  Just as quickly, that feeling is gone, but you know it was there, you know what you felt, and you know you will find it again.  

If we want to make room for the new, we need to do some letting go, which I think is one of the most difficult tasks we do.  Our grasps are tight when it comes to what we are used to.  We like consistency, stability, continuity.  It makes us feel safe and secure, but we know that the only consistency in life is change.  We are constantly grieving losses: friends move away, jobs change, children grow up, people become ill and sometimes die, and for goodness sake, people introduce new hymns in church, young people are always on their phones, people blog and tweet, and Canada has legalized cannabis!  What is the world coming to?  

How can we expect to let go of so much, and so fast?  People didn’t used to have to give up so much at once, and so quickly.  I read recently that if you take all the information that human beings had up until the year 1900 and called it one unit, that unit now doubles every ten years!  No wonder there’s so much anxiety and confusion.  

But before we can let go, before we can loosen that grasp, we need rituals of coming together and celebrating what has gone before, remembering the good and the bad, sharing those moments that have meant so much to us.  We remember our roots, we share our history through stories of laughter and hardship.  We celebrate what has gone before while at the same time celebrating our present and anticipating our future.

In Marcus Borg’s book, Evolution of the Word, he describes the "Letter to the Hebrews" as a letter written to second generation Christians who had been experiencing suffering and persecution.  Some had been considering abandoning this new faith and maybe some had.  It was probably a community of Jewish Christians as the author includes many references to the Hebrew Scriptures.  

First of all, I need to say, that this audience is not like us.  These were first century people under the rule of the Roman Empire.  They were a people persecuted for their faith.  They did not have the privilege that we live with today.  So we need to hear these words, knowing the context, but we can still learn from the wisdom in these words.  It doesn’t mean that we can’t connect, in some ways, with a people who, like us, experienced suffering, pain and grief.  

The author of this letter names people from their faith tradition, those that had accomplished so much by faith, starting with Abel and continuing with Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and even mentioning one woman, the prostitute Rahab.  He writes that there are many more he could name but he doesn’t have the time.  I’m going to read one of my favourite parts of this passage, because its so descriptive and colourful.  He tells of people:

33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. 35 Women received their dead by resurrection. Others were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resurrection. 36 Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented— 38 of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.

And that faithful cloud of witnesses continued and continues to this day.  I could mention many, like Joan of Arc or Joan of Norwich, Dorothy Day, or Martin Luther King Jr. or Mother Teresa, all people who lived their faith.  I know there are names that could be named from within your own community, names that will not be remembered in our history books but names that are imprinted in our hearts of those who lived their faith.  Take a moment to remember those faces of people who served their church, who fed those who were hungry, who spoke out against injustice, who humbly, with very little fuss, served the needs of their community.  This is your cloud of witnesses.

Remember the stranger you imagined earlier, the one with whom you walked and shared a meal?  Do you remember the message that stranger shared with you from scripture about loving your neighbour, loving the stranger, liberation, abundance, the questions and the struggle, inclusion and acceptance, healing, forgiveness, mercy, justice, reminding you that through every season, through times of trouble and fear, in times of grief and loss, this good news is always with us, waiting to enter into our lives, waiting for us to open up and let go?  In these words, I hear hope.  I hear hope for a church that is not about creeds and beliefs but about love and compassion, mercy and justice.  I see hope in the people of our church, those Jesus followers who want to be out in the world healing, being an ally, walking with, actively listening, and offering unconditional love to a broken world.  I feel hope when we gather to sing, when we share and listen to our stories, and when we break bread together.  Do you feel it?  Are you ready to let go?  Are you ready to open up your heart, mind, body, and soul to wherever it is God is leading?  It’s going to take patience.  It’s going to take times of prayer and contemplation.  It’s going to take some courage.  If you’re ready, I’m ready to join you.  

May God be our guide.  May Christ be our companion on the way.  May the Spirit push when we need a push.  Thanks be to God.